The Modern Novel

Biography

Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.

Nelson Algren’s quote may be the key to US literature, even if it is not strictly speaking true. He was born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham in Detroit in 1909. When he was three, his family moved to Chicago where he grew up and lived and he remains forever associated with this city, though he often had a love-hate relationship with it. He studied at the University of Illinois, where he earned a degree in journalism. However he graduated during the Depression and drifted around, looking for odd jobs, traveling to New Orleans and Texas. He published a short story in 1933 and when Vanguard Press asked him if he was working on an novel, he hitched to New York to get his advance ($100) and then hitched back to write the book. However, he stole a typewriter to write the book and had to leave Texas to avoid a two-year prison sentence, having already served five months. His first novel was published in 1935 and he then worked for various public bodies, before serving as a soldier in World War II. He remained a private for the duration of the war.

After the war, he published a collection of short stories and then received a grant to write what became his best-known work, The Man with the Golden Arm. It was made into a successful film, saving Frank Sinatra’s career, but Algren thought it sensationalised his novel and did not like it. His later work was not so well received, in part because of his left-wing views. The FBI kept a huge dossier on him. He was twice married (and twice divorced) and had an affair with Simone de Beauvoir, which appears in her book Les mandarins (The Mandarins). He died in 1981, shortly after moving to Long Island.

Other links

Nelson Algren
Nelson Algren Biography and Notes
The Nelson Algren Committee
On Nelson Algren’s Centenary
Funny side of the street (Vonnegut on Algren)
Interview