Algren
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“He even wanted”: Algren to Suzanne McNear, undated, supplied by McNear.
CHAPTER 14: KNITTED BACKWARD
“Calhoun prolonged”: Algren, Devil’s Stocking, 241.
“homeless and tempest-tossed”: Ibid., 67.
“example of man”: Giles, Confronting the Horror, 103.
“get away from the niggers”: Algren, Devil’s Stocking, 306.
“all is changed”: Ibid., 308.
“there are touches”: Herbert Mitgang, introduction to Algren, Devil’s Stocking, 5.
“tied to a typewriter”: Jan Herman, “Nelson Algren, the Angry Author,” Chicago Sun-Times, January 21, 1979.
“He didn’t feel driven”: Jan Herman, interview by author, 2010.
“Just imagine Nelson”: Joe Pintauro, interview by author, 2015.
“from my guts”: Weatherby, “The Last Interview,” 12.
“Why did we ever”: Herman, “In at Last.”
“I’ll call the fire marshall”: Joe Pintauro, “Nelson Algren’s Last Year: Algren in Exile,” Chicago, February 1988.
“He seemed so grateful”: Greg Therriault, interview by author, 2015.
“You call this a bookstore”: Canio Pavone, interview by author, 2015.
“He was like a big”: Ibid.
“This is the turnaround”: Pintauro, “Algren’s Last Year.”
“Let’s go to Capuccino’s”: Pavone, interview by author.
“I’ve been in whorehouses”: Weatherby, “Last Interview,” 10.
“a fine and private place”: Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress,” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 5th ed., vol. 1 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1962), 1388.
“People picked branches”: Pintauro, interview by author.
“Tricks out of Time”: Algren, Last Carousel, 536.
“My name is Regina”: Pintauro, “Algren’s Last Year.”
“Why should I?”: Bair, Simone de Beauvoir, 503.
“American society is”: Dan Simon, interview by author, 2012.
“Frankly, they didn’t need”: Savage, interview by author.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The information for this biography was drawn from a variety of sources, including interviews with Jon Anderson, John Blades, Chris Chandler, Andy Austin Cohen, Denise DeClue, Bruce Elliott, James Giles, Jan Herman, Fred Hogan, Henry Kisor, Rick Kogan, Warren Leming, Suzanne McNear, Gloria Moroni, Thomas Napierkowski, Dominic Pacyga, Canio Pavone, Doris and Dave Peltz, Joe Pintauro, Irwin Saltz, Bill Savage, Art Shay, Studs Terkel, and Morag Walsh.
The following books served as sources:
Algren, Nelson. Algren at Sea: Notes from a Sea Diary and Who Lost an American? Centennial Edition 1909–2009. New York: Seven Stories, 2008.
———. America Eats. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992.
———. Chicago: City on the Make. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.
———. The Devil’s Stocking. New York: Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana, 1983.
———. Entrapment and Other Writings. Edited by Brooke Horvath and Dan Simon. New York: Seven Stories, 2009.
———. The Last Carousel. New York: Warner Books, 1975.
———. The Man with the Golden Arm. 50th anniversary critical ed. New York: Seven Stories, 1999.
———. The Neon Wilderness. New York: Seven Stories, 1986.
———. Never Come Morning. 1st ed. With an introduction by Richard Wright. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1942.
———. Never Come Morning. With 1986 introduction by Kurt Vonnegut. New York: Seven Stories, 1996.
———. Nonconformity: Writing on Writing. New York: Seven Stories, 1998.
———. Somebody in Boots. New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1987.
———. The Texas Stories of Nelson Algren. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
———. A Walk on the Wild Side. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.
Atlas, James. Bellow: A Biography. New York: Random House, 2002.
Bair, Deirdre. Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
Beauvoir, Simone de. After the War: Force of Circumstance. Vol. 1, 1944–1952. Translated from the French by Richard Howard. New York: Paragon House, 1992.
———. America Day by Day. Translated by Carol Cosman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
———. The Mandarins. Translated by Leonard M. Friedman. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.
———. A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren. Translated and annotated by Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, Sara Halloway, Vanessa Kling, Kate LeBlanc, and Ellen Gordon Reeves. New York: New Press, 1998.
Bird, Caroline. The Invisible Scar. New York: David McKay, 1966.
Brent, Stuart. The Seven Stairs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Bruccoli, Matthew. Nelson Algren: A Descriptive Bibliography. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985.
Buhle, Mari Jo, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Left. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Century, Douglas. Barney Ross: The Life of a Jewish Fighter. New York: Schocken Books, 2006.
Cowley, Malcolm, ed. Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews. London: Mercury Books, 1962.
Cox, Martha Heasley, and Wayne Chatterton. Nelson Algren. Boston: Twayne, 1975.
Cutler, Irving. Jewish Chicago: A Pictorial History. Chicago: Arcadia, 2000.
Donohue, H. E. F., and Nelson Algren. Conversations with Nelson Algren. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964.
Drew, Bettina. Nelson Algren: A Life on the Wild Side. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989.
Duis, Perry R. Challenging Chicago. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Dyja, Thomas. The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream. New York: Penguin Books, 2013.
Ellis, Edward Robb. A Nation in Torment: The Great American Depression, 1929–1939. New York: Kodansha America, 1995.
Erdmans, Mary Patrice. Opposite Poles: Immigrants and Ethnics in Polish Chicago, 1976–1990. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.
Fabre, Michael. The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright. Translated from the French by Isabel Barzun. New York: William Morrow, 1973.
Federal Writers’ Project (Illinois). Works Progress Administration. Galena Guide. American Guide Series. Galena, IL: 1937.
Federal Writers’ Project (Illinois). The WPA Guide to Illinois, with a new introduction by Neil Harris and Michael Conzen. New York: Pantheon Books. Introduction copyright by Harris and Conzen, 1983. Guide copyright by Illinois Gov. Henry Horner, 1939.
Folsom, Franklin. Days of Anger, Days of Hope: A Memoir of the League of American Writers, 1937 to 1942. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1994.
Giles, James. Confronting the Horror: The Novels of Nelson Algren. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1989.
Granacki,Victoria, in association with the Polish Museum of America. Chicago’s Polish Downtown. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2004.
Grossman, James R., Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice L. Reiff, eds. The Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Hatcher, Harlan. The Great Lakes. London: Oxford University Press, 1944.
McCollum, Kenneth G., compiler. Nelson Algren: A Checklist. Detroit: Gale Research Company, Book Tower, 1973.
McNear, Suzanne. Knock Knock: A Life. Sag Harbor, NY: Permanent, 2012.
Merriner, James L. Grafters and Goo Goos: Corruption and Reform in Chicago, 1833–2003. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.
Nelson Algren: The End Is Nothing, the Road Is All. Directed and produced by Mark Blottner, Ilko Davidov, and Denis Mueller. New York: First Run Features, 2014.
Nordau, Max Simon. Conventional Lies of Our Civilization. Wikisource, 151.
Pierce, Besse Louise, ed. As Others See Chicago: Impressions of Visitors, 1673–1933. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 20
04.
Preminger, Otto. Preminger: An Autobiography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977.
Roosevelt High School, Chicago. The Lantern, 1927.
Rotella, Carlo. October Cities: The Redevelopment of Urban Literature. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Rowley, Hazel. Richard Wright: His Life and Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.
———. Tête-à-Tête: The Tumultuous Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
Royko, Mike. The Best of Mike Royko: One More Time. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
———. Like I Was Sayin’ … New York: E. P. Dutton, 1984.
Sandburg, Carl. The Chicago Race Riots: July 1919. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2013.
Simon, Rita James, ed. As We Saw the Thirties: Essays on Social and Political Movements of a Decade. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1967.
Squires, Gregory D., Larry Bennett, Kathleen McCourt, and Philip Nyden. Chicago: Race, Class and the Response to Urban Decline. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987.
Taylor, David A. Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
Vonnegut, Kurt. Fates Worse than Death: An Autobiographical Collage. New York: Berkley Books, 1992.
Ward, Robert, ed. Nelson Algren: A Collection of Critical Essays. Danvers, MA: Associated University Presses, 2007.
Wasik, John F. The Merchant of Power. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006.
Watkins, T. H. The Great Depression: America in the 1930s. New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2009.
Wixson, Douglas. Worker-Writer in America: Jack Conroy and the Tradition of Midwestern Literary Radicalism, 1898–1990. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
The following sources were also used:
Chicago magazine
Chicago Daily News
Chicago Police Department records
Chicago Sun
Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Tribune
Holiday magazine
New York Times
Time Magazine
US National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and St. Louis, Missouri
Newberry Library
The Ohio State University Library
Chicago Public Library
Roosevelt High School Library
Lake County Library, Merrillville, Indiana
University of Illinois records
US Department of the Census records, 1880–1960
CREDITS
The author gratefully acknowledges all the people who helped make material available for this book. Every effort has been made to contact potential copyright holders. The publisher would welcome information concerning any inadvertent errors or omissions.
Photographs of Amanda Algren donated to Ohio University Rare Books; letters to Amanda Algren from Nelson Algren printed by permission of Amanda Algren’s niece, Frances Kinsinger, and grandnephew, Fred Kinsinger.
Nelson Algren’s letters, letters to Algren, fragments from unpublished autobiography, unused screenplay for The Man with the Golden Arm, diary with Simone de Beauvoir, and photographs from Ohio State University library rare books collection, printed by permission of the Algren estate, as represented by Neil Olson of Donadio and Olson.
Edward Aswell’s letters printed by permission of Mary Aswell Doll, daughter of Edward Aswell.
Andy Austin Cohen’s photo of Nelson Algren printed by permission of Andy Austin Cohen.
Jack Conroy’s letters to Algren and Algren’s letters to Conroy printed by permission of the estate of Jack Conroy, represented by grandson Jerry Swartz.
Two photos from the 1927 “Lantern” yearbook from Roosevelt High School printed by permission of Chicago Public Schools, confirmed by Jessica Perez.
James Farrell letter to Ed Aswell praising Never Come Morning printed by permission of James T. Farrell papers, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Penn Libraries.
Franklin Folsom’s letter to Algren printed by permission of Folsom’s daughter Rachel Folsom.
Letter from Algren to Suzanne McNear printed by permission of Suzanne McNear.
Three photographs by Art Shay printed by permission of Art Shay.
Letter excerpt from Dalton Trumbo to Nelson Algren printed by permission of Trumbo’s daughter Mitzi Trumbo.
Excerpts from Richard Wright’s letters and from his introduction to Never Come Morning printed by permission of the estate of Richard Wright, represented by John Hawkins and Associates.
The first new biography of Algren in over 25 years, this fresh look at the man whose unique style and compassionate message enchanted readers and fellow writers and whose boyish charm seduced many women is indispensable to anyone interested in 20-century American literature and history.
MARY WISNIEWSKI is a reporter at the Chicago Tribune and former Reuters investigative reporter covering Midwest crime and politics. Previously a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and a reporter for Chicago Lawyer, Wisniewski has won numerous awards for reporting and has taught creative writing and published literary reviews. She is an active participant in the Nelson Algren Committee, past president of the Chicago Headline Club, and appears frequently on local television and radio.
Jacket design: Jonathan Hahn
Cover photo: The Ohio State University
libraries, Amanda Algren Collection
Author photo: Jean Lachat
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA