Grumbly 100th, Nelson!

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of writer Nelson Algren, author of The Man With the Golden Arm and A Walk on the Wild Side, two of the 20th century's top noir novels (Clicking on the above link will take you to the page of the Nelson Algren Committee, which features a booking photo of the author. That's not a guy who has a "happy" birthday).

Though born in Detroit, Algren grew up in Chicago and set Golden Arm in the seedy neighborhoods and taverns amongst which he grew up. His book Chicago: City on the Make also explored those areas and the people who lived there in ways that made no friends at the Chamber of Commerce. Golden Arm told the story of Frankie Machine, a morphine addict who was also an amazing poker dealer. The movie version, directed by Otto Preminger, earned Frank Sinatra an Oscar nomination. Algren hated it and sued Preminger for changing the story.

Walk, published in 1956, follows drifter Dove Linkhorn from Texas to New Orleans and back, wading through a sea of pimps, hookers and other assorted undesirables. It opens with a description of Dove's father Fitz, a man whose belief that someone somewhere was cheating him was so ingrained that he "felt that every daybreak duped him into waking and every evening conned him into sleep." An apter description of some people who feel the world owes them something that it's not giving them I've yet to read.

What often fascinated Algren was how people who had little or nothing -- and for whom a whole lot of what they had was poisoned -- tried to retain some sense of their own humanity as they scratched and fought for the means to continue their spare and even sordid existence. He seemed much less interested in why folks with everything sometimes went bad and far more interested in why folks with nothing sometimes kept trying to be good, and he used his novels to try to call attention to the attempts, shredded or otherwise, of those living in what he called "the neon wilderness" to live with some level of dignity, compassion and love. More than one Old Testament prophet might have been able to read Algren with understanding. And us folks who also use the New Testament of our Bibles might find frequent mentions of a fella who kept reminding us that the least, the last and the lost have a place in God's heart as well.

Unfortunately for Algren, Walk was a close look at things that lots of people of the time didn't want to take much of a close look at. Reviews bashed the novel and the adoration that came to him following Golden Arm turned to disgust and then oblivion. He kept writing, but without much impact. An affair with Simone de Beauvoir led to repeated frustration and loneliness, as earlier affiliations with the Communist Party prevented Algren from getting a passport and living with her in France as he wished. After moving to New Jersey in 1975 and Long Island in 1980, Algren died of a heart attack in 1981. This was well before a re-examination of his work gained him some approval and before the trend of "anniversary editions" of books could have offered him some renewed approval.

But it's likely that he wouldn't have found a lot of approval in a society that gushes oceans of ink, virtual and otherwise, over the lives and loves of actors, actresses and their bizarre homunculi, "reality show" stars. Or that folks who spend hours talking, writing and reading about people who've done nothing more than be the result of successful fertilization by properly wealthy sperm and ova and whose behavior would shame a cat in heat would care much about people who make less money, show less skin and have more sense.

Though the Nelson Algren Committee has been successful in getting his apartment named as an historical site, having the Nelson Algren Fountain built and in seeing all of his novels and short story collections come back into print, one of the honors the city of Chicago tried to give Algren didn't pan out. Evergreen Street was re-named Algren Street in his memory in 1981, but when the residents complained, the city changed the name back. Algren would probably have appreciated the fuss.