The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren

WOW.  It's something of the dialect vernacular of Eugene O'Neill's sea plays, crossed with a muderously serious Damian Runyon, crossed again with the effortless depth of character in Bellow's Adventures of Augie March.

He looked like a man who had never seen a cloud. (72)

Sophie: If I get any luckier I'll be the luckiest woman in the cemetery. (73)

He was too dear to her: into everything he did she must read some secret hatred of herself. (82)

Violet: Lies are just a poor man's pennies. (84)

Violet: So it was up to me to show him he was somebody all by hisself-- that's the first thing a woman got to do for a man. 'N of course there's no sense tryin' to prove somethin' like that standin' up. The least a girl owes herself is to be compfortable about it. (85)