Nonconformity

“A handbook for tough, truth-telling outsiders who are proud, as was Algren, to damn well stay that way.” –Kurt Vonnegut“In the never-before-published, book-length essay Nonconformity … [Algren] articulates an American literary world view that should guide the generations of writers to follow him—a quest so ambitious it is hard to think of any other American writer who attempted it since, perhaps, Ralph Waldo Emerson in Self-Reliance.” –Gerald Nicosia, Chicago Sun-Times“A passionate defense of the writer … Angry and funny as Algren usually is.” –Kirkus Reviews“This extended essay on what it takes to be a writer—and by extension a man—provides a corrosive antidote to any fin de siecle sentimentalizing of the American midcentury.” –The Boston Globe“Nonconformity underscores the beliefs of Algren, Dreiser and an army of intellectuals that it is the duty of the serious writer to serve as society’s moral conscience … Simon has done a great service in bringing this book into print.” –Bettina Drew, Chicago Tribune“Wise, courageous and humane.” –Publishers Weekly

One of the most neglected American writers and also one of the best loved, NELSON ALGREN wrote once that “literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity.” His writings always lived up to that definition. He was born on March 28, 1909, in Detroit and lived mostly in Chicago. His first short fiction was published in Story magazine in 1933. In 1935 he published his first novel, Somebody in Boots. In early 1942, Algren put the finishing touches on a second novel and joined the war as an enlisted man. By 1945, he still had not made the grade of Private first class, but the novel Never Come Morning was widely praised and eventually sold over a million copies. Jean-Paul Sartre translated the French-language edition. In 1947 came The Neon Wilderness, his famous short story collection which would permanently establish his place in American letters. The Man with the Golden Arm, generally considered Algren’s most important novel, appeared in 1949 and became the first winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in March 1950. Then came Chicago- City on the Make (1951), a prose poem, and A Walk on the Wild Side (1956), a rewrite of Somebody in Boots. Algren also published two travel books, Who Lost an American? and Notes from a Sea Voyage. The Last Carousel, a collection of short fiction and nonfiction, appeared in 1973. He died on May 9, 1981, within days of his appointment as a fellow of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. His last novel, The Devil’s Stocking, based on the life of Hurricane Carter, and Nonconformity- Writing on Writing, a 1952 essay on the art of writing, were published posthumously in 1983 and 1996 respectively. In 2009 came Entrapment and Other Writings, a major collection of previously unpublished writings that included two early short story masterpieces, “Forgive Them, Lord,” and “The Lightless Room,” and the long unfinished novel fragment referenced in the book’s title.

DANIEL SIMON is the founder and publisher of Seven Stories Press. He is the co-author, with Jack Hoffman, of Run Run Run- The Lives of Abbie Hoffman and translator of Van Gogh- Self Portraits by Pascal Bonafoux. His writings have appeared in The Monthly Review and The Nation, among others. In February 1996, he was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic.

C.S. O’BRIEN is a writer and editor based in New York.

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