Nelson Algren

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Nelson Algren (March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer.

Algren is best known for his book The Man with the Golden Arm (1949), which was also released as the 1955 film of the same name and which was adapted as the National Book Award-winning novel. "He was one of America's most well-known literature writers in the late 1940s and early 1950s," Harold Augenbraum said.

Simone de Beauvoir, a French writer, is portrayed in her book The Mandarins, which takes place in Paris and Chicago. Based on this book, he is regarded as "a sort of bard of the down-and-outer," as well as his short stories in The Neon Wilderness (1947) and his book A Walk on the Wild Side (1956).

The latter was based on Edward Dmytryk's screenplay of John Fante's 1962 film of the same name (directed by Edward Dmytryk).

Life

Algren was born in Detroit, Michigan, and the son of Goldie (née Kalisher) and Gerson Abraham. He and his parents immigrated to Chicago, Illinois, where they lived in a working-class, immigrant neighborhood on the South Side at the age of three. His father was the son of a Swedish convert to Judaism and of a German Jewish woman, and his mother was of German Jewish descent. (She owned a candy store on the South Side) When Algren was young, his family lived at 7139 S. South Park Avenue (now S. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive) on the South Side's Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood.

His family moved from the far South Side to an apartment on 4834 N. Troy Street in Albany Park's North Side neighborhood. His father was a car mechanic on North Kedzie Avenue.

Algren's essay, "Men on the Make," included autobiographical information: he recalled being teased by neighborhood children after moving to Troy Street because he was a fan of the South Side White Sox. Despite being on the North Side for the bulk of his life, Algren never changed his team and remained a White Sox fan.

Algren was educated in Chicago's public schools, graduated from Hibbard High School (now Roosevelt High School) and went on to study at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, earning a Bachelor of Science in Journalism during the Great Depression in 1931. He wrote for the Daily Illini student newspaper during his time at the University of Illinois.

While Algren was in Texas working at a gas station in 1933, he wrote his first story, "So Help Me." He was discovered loot a typewriter from an empty classroom at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Illinois, before returning to Chicago. He boarded a train for his escape but was angry and redirected to Alpine. He was in jail for nearly five months and was facing potential additional three years in jail. He was released, but the incident left a lasting impression on him. It deepened his identification with strangers, has-beens, and general failures that later populated his fictional world.

"The Brother's House" was the first of Algren's three O. Henry Awards in 1935. The story appeared in Story magazine for the first time and was reprinted in an anthology of O. Henry Award winners.

Algren's first book, Somebody in Boots (1935), was later dismissed by Algren as primitive and politically naive, claiming that he infused it with Marxist theories he never fully understood because it was fashionable at the time. The book was not profitable and went out of print.

In 1937, Algren married Amanda Kontowicz. He had been to a party to celebrate the launch of Somebody in Boots. They would eventually divorce and remarry before divorcing for the second time.

Andrew O'Hagan's second book, Never Come Morning (1942), was described by him as "the book that really shows the Algren style in its first great flourishing." It depicts the demise of a doomed young Polish-American boxer turned criminal. Ernest Hemingway wrote to his publisher Maxwell Perkins on July 8, 1942: "I think it's really good." It's as fine and healthy as it comes out of Chicago. Members of Chicago's large Polish-American population, some of whom described it as pro-Axis propaganda, were offended by the novel. Some incense Polish-American Chicagoans said he was pro-Nazi Nordic, despite knowing that Algren was of partial Jewish descent. Mayor Edward Joseph Kelly was advised by his Polish-American scholars to prohibit the book from the Chicago Public Library.

Algren served as a litter bearer in the European Theater of World War II. Despite being a college graduate, he was refused admission to Officer Candidate School. There is speculation that it may have arisen due to mistrust of his political convictions, but criminal convictions would have most likely barred him from OCS.

Algren had no intention to serve in the war but was drafted in 1943, according to Bettina Drew in her 1989 book Nelson Algren: A Life on the Wild Side. While stationed in France, an indifferent soldier was working on the black market. He was dealt a hard time by some fellow black marketeers.

The Neon Wilderness (1947), Algren's first short-story collection, collected 24 stories from 1933 to 1947. Algren received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as a a grant from Chicago's Newberry Library.

It was during Algren's affair with Simone de Beauvoir that the pair met in the same year. De Beauvoir visit Algren, Chicago, was suggested by Mary Guggenheim, who had been Algren's companion. The couple would spend the summer together in Algren's cottage in Miller Beach, Indiana, and later travel to Latin America together in 1949. Beauvoir wrote about Algren (who is 'Lewis Brogan' in the book) in her book The Mandarins (1954):

In a Playboy magazine article about a trip he took to Beauvoir with Beauvoir, Algren and Beauvoir became disenchanted with each other, and a tumultuous and her pimp in their way.

The Man With the Golden Arm (1949), Algren's next book, would be his best known piece. In 1950, it was recognized for the National Book Award for Fiction. Frankie Machine's heroine, a young drummer who is a dealer in illicit card games, is the protagonist of the novel. Frankie is trapped in Demimonde, Chicago, after he developed a morphine addiction during his brief military service during WWII. He is married to a woman who caused an automobile accident that he mistakenly believes he suffered.

Algren's new book, Chicago, on the Make (1951), was a scathing paper that protested the city's investors but depicted the city's back alleys, its dispossessed, its corrupt leaders, and the city's swindlers. Algren also expressed his admiration of the city as a "lovefully so real."

The Man With the Golden Arm was based on a 1955 film of the same name starring Frank Sinatra and directed and produced by Otto Preminger. Algren resigned shortly from active service. It was a commercial success, but Algren loathed the film. Preminger sued Preminger for an injunction to prevent him from claiming the property as "An Otto Preminger film" but he eventually dropped the case out of financial reasons.

Algren was interviewed for The Paris Review by rising author Terry Southern in the fall of 1955. Through this meeting, Algren and Southern became close, and the two groups stayed in touch for many years. Algren became one of Southern California's most ardent early supporters, and he often used Southern as an example of a good short story writer.

Algren's book A Walk on the Wild Side (1956), which was another commercial hit (1956). He reworked portions of his first book, Somebody in Boots, as well as obtaining key excerpts from many published short stories, such as his 1947 "The Face in the Barroom Floor." During the Great Depression's early years, the book was about a wandering Texan adrift. It was superior to the earlier book, according to the author. It was based on the 1962 film of the same name. Some commentators believed the film bowdlerized the book, but it was not commercially viable.

Algren's last commercial success was a walk on the Wild Side. To supplement his income, he switched to teaching creative writing at the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop.

He met Betty Ann Jones while teaching at the Writers Workshop in 1965. They married in 1967 and divorced the following year. Algren's "enthusiasm for writing, reading, and gaming left little time for the demands of a married man," Kurt Vonnegut, who worked with him in Iowa in 1965.

Algren appeared in Philip Kaufman's underground comedy Fearless Frank (1967) as a gangster named Needles.

He took the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest pledge in 1968, promising to refuse tax refunds in protest against the Vietnam War.

Algren aspired for a journalism job in South Vietnam, according to Bettina Drew's biography. Strapped for cash more than a decade after his only two commercially lucrative books, he saw Vietnam as a way to make money, not from journalism fees but in dealing with the black market.

Algren was hired to write a magazine article about Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the award fighter who had been found guilty of double murder in 1975. Algren visited Paterson, New Jersey, while researching the article. Algren was captivated by Paterson's city, and he immediately decided to move there. Algren sold most of his possessions, left Chicago, and moved into a Paterson apartment.

Algren moved to Sag Harbor, Long Island, in 1980. On May 9, 1981, he died as a result of a heart attack at home. He is buried in Oakland Cemetery, Long Island, Long Island.

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