film version of, 367, 370, 403
musical version of, xiii, 385
paperback edition of, 358, 381n
promotion of, 355, 357, 358
publication of, 354–55
reviews of, 355–57, 359, 399
sales of, 355, 358, 363
story of, 338–40
title recycled, 322n, 340
writing of, 324–30, 336–40, 343, 344
writing of (as Nonconformity), 320–22
writing style of, 338
“Walk on the Wild Side” (song), xiii
Wallace, Henry A., 256–57, 439
Walter, Francis E., 341
Ward, Ted, 146, 289
Washington Herald, 113
Washington Post, 113
Weatherby, W. J., 481–82
Weissner, Carl, 477
Welles, Orson, 168
Wharton, Wallie, 149, 157n
White, Oscar, 151
White City, see Chicago
White, E. B., Here Is New York, 301
Whitman, Walt, 356
Who Lost an American? (Algren), 385, 390–93, 402, 417
Willner, George, 284, 289
Wilson, Edmund, Memoirs of Hecate County, 346
Windsor Quarterly, 109, 356
Wirth, Louis, 100
Wolf, Friedrich, 118
Wolfe, Thomas, 278, 279
Workers’ Center, 127, 128
Works Progress Administration, 137, 186, 454
World’s Columbian Exposition “White City,” Chicago, 13–14, 24, 26, 98, 100, 144
World War II, 168–69, 184, 190
Algren drafted into Army in, 191, 192–204, 192
Algren in Evacuation Hospital unit, 199–203
Algren’s Army assignments in, 192–93, 194–96, 197, 198n, 199–203
Algren’s wish to go to Europe for, 193, 194, 198, 200
atomic bombs dropped in, 272
Battle of Ruhr Pocket, 201
end of, 201, 203, 209
and Pearl Harbor, 176
postwar society, 209–12, 218, 269–70, 276–77
Venereal Disease Control Project, 186–87
Wright, Richard, 104–5, 126, 147, 224, 319, 425, 463
Algren’s friendship with, 102, 104, 105, 106, 121, 131, 140–41, 168, 170, 171, 197–98
on Algren’s writing, xiii, 105n, 171, 172–73, 175
American Hunger, 100n, 105n
and American Writers’ Congress, 119–20
and Beauvoir, 237
“Big Boy Leaves Home,” 141
Black Boy, 197
as black writer, 119, 263
as Communist Party member, 105, 143, 289
death of, 400, 432
and fame, 170
and Harper & Brothers, 171
and Illinois Writers’ Project, 137, 164
influence of, 167, 356
and Jim Crow, 168
and John Reed Club, 102, 105, 108, 119
and League of American Writers, 108, 119–20, 133, 139, 142
and money, 326
move to New York, 141, 157
move to Paris, 170, 226, 262–63, 326, 377
Native Son, 164–67, 168, 170, 171, 176, 183, 235, 263
photo essay of, 168, 170
and war, 168–69
Writer, The, 188
Writers’ Circle, 79–80
Yaddo artists’ colony, 121
Yates, Sidney, 37, 38n
Yellow Cab Company, 21, 98
Yerby, Frank, 170n, 318
Zionism, 10, 11
Zola, Emile, 182
Copyright © 2019 by Colin Asher Bosio-Cady
All rights reserved
First Edition
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Asher, C., author.
Title: Never a lovely so real : the life and work of Nelson Algren / Colin Asher.
Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2019] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018049775 | ISBN 9780393244519 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Algren, Nelson, 1909–1981. | Authors, American—20th century—Biography.
Classification: LCC PS3501.L4625 Z55 2019 | DDC 813/.52 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049775
ISBN 9780393244526 (eBook)
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