Algren (45 page)

CHAPTER 6
: POLONIA'S REVENGE, AND ALGREN IN THE ARMY

“For some weeks”
: Polish Roman Catholic Union of America to Mayor Edward J. Kelly, May 12, 1942, Chicago Public Library archives.

“most vicious attack”
: Resolution dated May 29, 1942, by the Polish American Council, signed by President Leon T. Walkowicz, Secretary Joseph F. Manka, and Treasurer Frank J. Tomczak, from Algren FBI file, National Archives.

“filthy book”
: Bernice Eichler to Carl B. Roden, July 22, 1942, Chicago Public Library archives.

“the book has solely”
: Ibid.

“misjudged the intention”
: Edward Aswell to John Olejniczak, June 3, 1942, OSU libraries.

“On that score”
: Edward Aswell to Algren, June 4, 1942, OSU libraries.

“There was the sense”
: Dominic Pacyga, interview by author, 2015.

“preferred that he write”
: Mike Royko, “Algren's Golden Pen,”
Chicago Sun-Times
, May 13, 1981, reprinted in Royko,
The Best of Mike Royko: One More Time
, 148.

“[Algren] depicted an entire”
: Thomas Napierkowski, professor of English literature at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, interview by author, 2015.

“Roden's philosophy”
: Morag Walsh, senior archival specialist, Special Collections and Preservation Division, Chicago Public Library, e-mail message to author. Information about the library's purchasing policy comes from Walsh and from an exhibit about the library from 1995, which included an informational label that the library received at least twenty requests to withhold the book from circulation. The label said
that the library did not buy the book immediately since it was not judged to be of sufficient interest or significance. The fact that the library bought
Never Come Morning
in 1943, as well as subsequent Algren books in the years in which they were published, is recorded in the library's
Book Bulletin
periodical.

“He smote the sledded”
: William Shakespeare,
Hamlet
, act 1, scene 1, quoted in Algren, preface to
Never Come Morning
(1962), xiii.

“If you've got”
: Algren, preface to
Never Come Morning
(1962), xiv.

“It is necessary only”
: The following quotations are from Algren, “Do It the Hard Way,” in
Entrapment and Other Writings
, 69–72.

“How did you get”
: Algren,
Nonconformity
, 55–56.

“in your free time”
:
History of the 125th Evacuation Unit
, pamphlet, OSU libraries.

“sullen”
: First Sgt. Henry F. Tadday, undated report but apparently connected with following Langdon report, National Archives at St. Louis, National Personnel Records Center.

“This soldier”
: Capt. Frank M. Langdon, report dated February 17, 1944, National Archives at St. Louis, National Personnel Records Center.

“I wanted to kill”
: Donohue and Algren,
Conversations
, 116.

“I lost a good outfit”:
Algren to Jack Conroy, September 29, 1944, Newberry Library archives.

“Of course”
: Donohue and Algren,
Conversations
, 69.

“bottle of grape juice”
: Algren to Jack Conroy, February 27, 1945, OSU libraries.

“Our war was with”
: Algren, “The Heroes,” in
The Neon Wilderness
, 267.

“a workers' city”
: Algren, “He Couldn't Boogie-Woogie Worth a Damn,” in
Neon Wilderness
, 97.

“Pick it up, Joe”
: Algren, interview, in Cowley,
Writers at Work
, 210.

“I recognized many old”
: Henry Morgan, January 29, 1947, broadcast,
https://archive.org/details/TheHenryMorganShowPartOne
.

“like bright lights”
: David Peltz, interview by author.

“in a decision”
: Edward Aswell to Algren, February 13, 1946, OSU libraries.

The details of how Nelson and Amanda decided to divorce are contained in a letter from Eva Mason, who represented Amanda in the sale of her personal letters, to Geoffrey Smith of the OSU libraries, dated September 8, 1992.

“I know I'll have to feel”
: Algren to Amanda Algren, January 29, 1946, OSU libraries.

“Probably short of a book”
: Algren to Amanda Algren, May 8, 1947, OSU libraries.

“pavement-colored cap”
: Algren, “Stickman's Laughter,” in
Neon Wilderness
, 66.

“the dark at the top”
: Algren, “Where Did Everybody Go?,”
Chicago Tribune
, February 13, 1972.

“without the owner's consent”
: Algren, “The Captain Has Bad Dreams,” in
Neon Wilderness
, 26.

“They lived”
: Ibid., 22.

“Ogden Avenue eyes”
: Ibid., 18.

“community singing”
: Algren, “Stickman's Laughter,” in
Neon Wilderness
, 65.

“So nothing important”
: Ibid., 72.

“Lies are a poor man's pennies”
: Algren, “Poor Man's Pennies,” in
Neon Wilderness
, 119.

“wider perils”
: Charles Poore, “Books of the Times,”
New York Times
, January 25, 1947.

“rugged reading”
: Kelsey Guilfoil, “Stories Bare Bitter Truth About Slums,”
Chicago Tribune
, January 26, 1947.

“enough horror”
: Catherine Meredith Brown, “Chicago Without Tears or Dreams,”
Saturday Review
, February 8, 1947.

“Beneath each sordid”
: Jack Conroy, publication unknown, OSU libraries.

“goofy kind of glow”
: Studs Terkel, afterword to Algren,
Neon Wilderness
, 288.

“Chicago intellectual”
: Ron Grossman, “Stuart Brent, 1912–2010: Longtime Influential Bookseller Was Self-Appointed Guardian of Local Literature,”
Chicago Tribune
, June 27, 2010.

“the distinction of being”
: Brent,
The Seven Stairs
, 37.

“a remarkable singleness”
: Ibid., 38.

“the gates of Algren's”
: Wixson,
Worker-Writer
, 448.

“out of a Gorky novel”
: Brent,
Seven Stairs
, 39.

“in a slight smile”
: Ibid.

“I felt an impenetrable wall”
: Ibid., 40.

“Then it occurred to me”
: Ibid.

CHAPTER 7
: BELOVED LOCAL YOUTH

“another deluded broad”
: Richard Stern,
Still on Call
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 78.

“You have the wrong”
: Beauvoir,
America Day by Day
, 96.

“hoarse screech”
: Donohue and Algren,
Conversations
, 181.

“She wasn't taking”
: Ibid.

“lit by a light-blue intelligence”
: Algren,
Algren at Sea
, 82.

“an amalgam”
: Art Shay,
Chicago's Nelson Algren
(New York: Seven Stories, 2007), xvii.

“smell of dollars”
: Beauvoir,
The Mandarins
, 325.

“Land of the Living Dead”
:
Time
, August 29, 1949.

“Absolutely No Dancing”
: Beauvoir,
America Day by Day
, 97.

“They dance with a joyous”
: Ibid., 98.

“It is beautiful”
: Ibid.

“With us”
: Ibid.

“How is Malraux”
: Ibid.

“burned paper”
: Beauvoir,
Mandarins
, 325.

“By the time she left”
: Algren to Amanda Algren, March 4, 1947, OSU libraries.

“the prettiest Existentialist”
: Janet Flanner, “The Talk of the Town,”
New Yorker
, February 22, 1947.

“never understood a word”
: Denise DeClue, interview by author, 2015.

“exter-remists”
: Algren letter to Amanda Algren, March 4, 1947, OSU libraries.

“I think you felt”
: Simone de Beauvoir to Algren, February 23, 1947, in Beauvoir,
A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren
, 12.

“If you do not”
: Algren to Simone de Beauvoir, February 27, 1947, in Rowley,
Tête-à-Tête: The Tumultuous Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre
, 177.

“Too bad for us”
: Beauvoir,
After the War: Force of Circumstance
, 125.

“I have all my time”
: Beauvoir,
Mandarins
, 332.

“I didn't come”
: Ibid., 334.

“a pretty young man”
: Beauvoir,
America Day by Day
, 358.

“Well, they try, but”
: Algren, interview by
Fling
, January 1963. It's impossible to be sure which dice girl answered this question—they were common sights in bars in those days.

“only a boy”
: Bair,
Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography
, 340.

“beloved local youth”
: Ibid., 341.

“unstable, moody”
: Beauvoir,
Force
, 126.

“à Simone”
: Bair,
Simone de Beauvoir
, 341.

“I want life”
: Claude Francis and Fernande Gontier,
Simone de Beauvoir: A Life, A Love Story
, trans. Lisa Nesselson (New York: St. Martin's, 1987), 80.

“I am in our Chicago”
: Simone de Beauvoir to Algren, May 21, 1947, in Beauvoir,
Transatlantic
, 18.

“I did not think”
: Algren to Simone de Beauvoir, quoted in her letter of July 16, 1947, in Beauvoir,
Transatlantic
, 50
.

“essential love”
: Beauvoir,
The Prime of Life
, quoted in Bair,
Simone de Beauvoir
, 158.

“Do you understand”
: Simone de Beauvoir to Algren, July 23, 1947, in Beauvoir,
Transatlantic
, 51
.

“I should like”
: Simone de Beauvoir to Algren, December 2, 1947, in Beauvoir,
Transatlantic
,113.

“one of the few writers”
: Kurt Vonnegut, 1986 introduction to Algren,
Never Come Morning
(1996), xvii.

“Seven Good Frog Commandments”
: Algren to Simone de Beauvoir, n.d., quoted in Bair,
Simone de Beauvoir
, 366.

“dying … laughing”
: Donohue and Algren,
Conversations
, 300.

“You son-of-a-bitch”
: Ibid.

“Miss de Beauvoir”
: Simone de Beauvoir to Algren, September 26, 1947, in Beauvoir,
Transatlantic
, 65.

“particular acuity”
: Beauvoir,
Force
, 125.

“I had more kicks”
: Algren to Joseph Haas, March 1, 1952, OSU libraries. Reproduced in Algren,
The Man with the Golden Arm
, 345.

CHAPTER 8
: GOLDEN YEARS

“Yet why does”
: Algren, the poem “The Man with the Golden Arm,” used as an epigraph for the novel of the same name, 341.

“I still don't see”
: Algren to Ken McCormick, June 7, 1947, OSU libraries.

“the toughest foe”
: Barney Ross, quoted in International News Service, “Little Barney Ross Slays the Giant: Beats Narcotics Habit in Four Months,” January 15, 1947.

“Jack is having trouble”
: Algren, interview, in Cowley,
Writers at Work
, 212.

“You want to see”
: Ibid.

“evening country”
: Algren, “Afternoon in the Land of the Strange Light Sleep,” in
Entrapment
, 215.

“Well, you know”
: Algren, interview, in Cowley,
Writers at Work
, 213.

“He wasn't Frankie Machine”
: Ibid.

“I don't want you to see”
: Algren,
Last Carousel
, 274.

“a little lame man”
: Ibid.

“I'm a friend of Margo's”
: Ibid., 275.

“a special grace”
: Algren,
Nonconformity
, 48.

“that sounds more like”
: Algren, “Laughter in Jars—Not as Sandburg Wrote

It,”
Chicago Sun
, July 20, 1947.

“crippled of late”
: Algren,
Golden Arm
, 96.

“The Dead, the Drunk”
: Proposed title mentioned in letter from Stanley Pargellis at the Newberry Library to Algren, January 6, 1948. The other titles come from letters to McCormick and Beauvoir—Algren kept changing his mind.

“have-you-read-any-good-books-lately”
:
Chicago Daily News
, March 1948, clip in OSU libraries.

“rough shape but readable”
: Algren to Ken McCormick, April 2, 1948, OSU libraries
.

“happened upon a strange”
: Algren and Beauvoir's joint diary, OSU libraries.

“citizen of the United States”
: Ibid.

“I spent two hours”
: Beauvoir,
Force
, 155.

“tongue lolling”
: This and the following quotations are from the diary, except where indicated.

“Bingo Bango Bongo”
: Algren to Jack Conroy, June 8, 1948, Newberry Library archives.

“Oh, all right”
: Beauvoir,
Force
, 158.