Entrapment and Other Writings

Description

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Customer Reviews

Blackie and Baby Join Frankie and Molly-O
What a start I got when I saw "Entrapment" next to "The Man with the Golden Arm" in Barnes & Noble. (Sorry, Amazon.com). Was it 1959 again, and had the full novel been published? Hardly, but this collection of assorted fiction and non-fiction is, I agree, an essential Algren text. It contains "The Lightless Room," a never-published story from the 1930s about a boxer killed in the ring. It is told in multiple voices--the girlfriend's, the manager's. But the most compelling witness is the fighter, who in a single sentence tells us all we need to know about boxing: "I should of set with my feet on the desk like Judge Costello hisself and never be after getting my mouth bust open of a Monday night off some Chicago Av'noo Polack for twelve dollars and expenses, just because a crowd likes to see an Irishman take it." Another heart-stopping story, "Forgive Them, Lord," describes a racial killing. That's just the start: Algren weighs in on the Vietnam War, expresses regard for James T. Farrell, and describes the profession of "stooping"--looking for uncashed winning tickets at the racetrack. But what about the centerpiece--the unfinished novel "Entrapment?" Here I'm a little disappointed. Obviously, editors Horvath and Simon never intended to recreate the entire work out of scraps, but this Algren devotee wishes they had. "Watch Out for Daddy," the first of the two parts, was initially published in "The Last Carousel," and ranks with Algren's finest work. The opening scene sets the stage: Beth-Mary is turned on to heroin by her lover and pimp "on that day so still so burning." The "new" piece, a long interior reflection by a man in a hotel room who has just lost his woman, seems to continue the story, but there's no bridge between the two. How did Christian Kindred, the pimp in the first section, become the bookie in the second? (Horvath and Simon acknowledge this discrepancy). How did Beth-Mary become Baby? What accounts for the absence of heroin in the second segment? (We're told that Baby kicked it, but this is not depicted in the text.) Then there's this: The editors note that "Moon of the Arfy Darfy," a story published in "The Last Carousel," was initially part of "Entrapment," but ended up in an unfinished racetrack novel. Despite the explanation that it no longer fit, some version of it should have been included here so we could see where Algren was going. Finally, why reproduce the first page of the typewritten manuscript when it is not used in the text? It would have been a classic Algren opener: "`Now remember this if you can,' the ancient one-eyed jackal warned Real High Daddy, `you can always treat a woman too good. But you can never treat her too bad.'" But this is easy to say for someone who didn't wade through Algren's papers at the University of Ohio. I'm grateful to the editors for what they've delivered. Seven Stories Press has kept the Algren name alive by issuing both published and unpublished work, independent of chronology. "The Last Carousel," "The Devil Stocking" and the travel books have been packaged in the same noirish way as the bestselling novels. And now, almost 30 years after Algren's death. Blackie, the bookie and Baby have joined Frankie Machine and Molly-O in our hearts. What's next--a collection of Algren's literary criticism? Here's hoping.

2009-05-25 (New York) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 5

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The Last Carousel

Description

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Customer Reviews

A Walk On The Wild Side- Hold On
Parts of this review were used in a review of Algren's classic Man With The Golden Arm and of the collection of short stories in The Neon Wilderness. These short stories in the Last Carousel reflect the same milieu that Algren worked in that novel although he has taken some of the stories out of Chicago and some of them are from a later period in the 1960's and 1970's. In a strange sense Algren throughout his literary career was working that same small vein- but what a mother lode he produced.

Growing up in a post World War II built housing project this reviewer knew first hand the so-called `romance' of drugs, the gun and the ne'er do well hustler. And also the mechanisms one needed to develop to survive at that place where the urban working poor meet and mix with the lumpen proletariat- the con men, dopesters, grifters drifters and gamblers who feed on the downtrodden. This is definitely not the mix that Damon Runyon celebrated in his Guys and Dolls-type stories. Far from it.

Nelson Algren has gotten, through hanging around Chicago police stations and the sheer ability to observe, that sense of foreboding, despair and of the abyss of America's mean streets down pat in a number of works, including this collection of his better stories. Along the way we meet an array of stoolies, cranks, crackpots and nasty brutish people who are more than willing to put obstacles in the way of anyone who gets in their way. But to what end? They lose in the end, and drag others down with them.

We, of late, have become rather inured to lumpen stories either of the death and destruction type or of the rehabilitative kind but at the time that these stories were put together in the late 1940's and early 1950's this was something of an eye-opener for those who were not familiar with the seamy side of urban life. The dead end jobs, the constant run-ins with the `authorities' in the person of the police, many times corrupt as well. The dread of going to work, the dread of not going to work, the fear of being victimized and the glee of victimizing. The whole jumbled mix of people with few prospects and fewer dreams.

Algren has put it down in writing for all that care to read. These are not pretty stories. And he has centered his stories on the trials and tribulations of gimps, prostitutes and other hustlers. Damn, as much as I knew about the kind of things that Algren was describing these are still gripping stories. And, if the truth were told, you know as well as I do that unfortunately these stories could still be written today. Read Algren if you want to walk on the wild side.

2008-06-20 (boston, ma) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Some Real Gems in a Very Mixed Bag
There are some excellent stories (tales of growing up on Chicago's south side in the 19-teens), some very good stories (about bookies, railbirds, and down-on-their luck jockeys), and some mediocre stories (essays from a trip to Viet Nam and stories of pimps and prostitues in Saigon) in this collection. The best pieces made the collection well worth it for me.

Algren is one of the most lyrical writers that I've read. Few have written prose that gives me the sense of rhythm and melody in the English language that I get from Algren's best stuff (Toni Morrison comes to mind). My favorite passage in this book, from EVERYTHING INSIDE'S A PENNY -- "My father was a fixer of tools, a fixer of machinery; a fixer of tables gone wobbly and windows that had stuck....Other men wished secretly to be forever drunken. He wished to be forever fixing."

2000-05-27 | mlewando | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 4

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Never Come Morning

Description

A reissue of a classic American novel, with an introduction by Kurt Vonnegut, Nelson Algren's second novel, originally published in 1942, tells the story of Bruno Bicek, a tough from Chicago's Northwest Side, and Steffi, the woman who shares his dream while living his nightmare. "An unusual book and a brilliant book." -- The New York Times

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Customer Reviews

haunting, expert novel about shattered dreams
I wish someone, anyone in my many years of reading literature had introduced me to Algren. Why did it take 60 years to discover him? Especially give my proximity to Chicago, that industrial behemoth? And I'm a voracious reader! Perhaps because few people knew of his works. They were out of print for decades. Censorship? Algren's total uncomprosing intellectual honesty frightened many...

Seldom have any characters affected me as did Bruno and Steffi. Never Come Morning is both a poetic mediation and a heartbreaking tragedy. The poverty, misery, degradation of these characters is terrible. They are trapped in harsh, destitute conditions and every nornmal human desire to live, succeed. find peace and break free of their surroundings is smashed in their faces. They are crushed by circumstance and are doomed.

I was totally engrossed by this novel, even as I realized the utter hopelessness of redemption of Bruno and Steffi. I won't forget them. Anyone who can not commiserate with these characters, must have lost some of their humanity. Their situation is heartbreaking.

Nelson Algren was a survivor of these streets... he knew them intimately, and his experience can not be denied. He was one of the very first writers to violate the "niceness" standards of the 50s.
As one of the first writers to dissect urban poverty in a realistic manner, he paid the price. His work was out of print for decades.

Right now, "urban grittiness" is commonplace in books and movies and music. But this was not possible in the 50s. Victorian standards were preached and enforced everywhere (and Victorian hypocrisy flourished). Algren was one of the first to venture into this territory. And he was widely criticized for his depictions.

Algren is one of the greatest writers I've read. And this after only one book: Never Come Morning.

2009-05-08 | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Dead Before the Age of Twenty
This is a grim and authentic depiction of the slum dwelling residents of the Polish Triangle, a downtrodden district only minutes removed the Chicago Loop and a lifetime removed from the hotels, restaurants and stores which catered to the city's elite. It is a place where children scavenge for discarded bottles in hope of collecting a two cent deposit refund for each empty that they can return.

Nelson Algren lived amongst the characters that he described in his novels. He provides a solid description of life along Ashland and Milwaukee Avenues and Division Street when the region was inhabited by Poles who struggling to earn enough to be described as blue collar or working poor. Drunkeness, gambling and prostitution once flourished in these environs. Rapists and thieves functioned in the alleyways with little interference from the police.

Frequently, books feature blurbs from other writers, celebrities and notables. Sometimes, after tossing aside a book in disgust after a dull read, I wondered whether or not the persons who contributed the praise brimming blurbs ever bothered to actually read the books that they were trumpeting? Were those people simply reciprocating favors from their friends? "Never Come Morning" contained one blurb that I could not dismiss so lightly: novelist Ernest Hemingway, who knew something about Chicago and something about writing, commended Nelson Algren's book.

Hemingway was right on the money. This book is a worthy companion to those of Farrell, Motley and Dreiser.

2007-12-30 | Hank (Chicago) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Frank and Brutal with a sense of Deja-Vu

Bruno 'Lefty' Bicek is a Polak on the Polak side of Division Street. He has day dreams of being admired; a hero in baseball or boxing. He daydreams of beating cheating opponents by playing clean; winning through skill alone. And he has his girl, Steffi R.
But with corruption everywhere,the police able to pick up and put away on a whim, and the need to be 'regular' with the gang members sees Lefty end up as all Division Street hoods do. Life beat out of them,dreams staying daydreams. Lefty loses his soul when he does nothing to stop Steffi being gang raped by the guys.He needed to keep 'regular'.

As ever, Algren never sanatises or justifies or explains. Its just written how it is, and 'Never Come Morning' is perhaps his most frank portrayal. It has few-if any-of the humour that creeps in his other novels.

Having read 'The Man With The Golden Arm', 'Walk on the Wild Side' 'Neon Wilderness' and now 'Never Come Morning' I know two things. First, Algren is a remarkable and socially observent writter. Second, he basically just writes the same story over and over with slightly different takes; from slightly different angles.
All the same things were present in 'Never Come..' as in the other Algrens I've read. The line up;Lefty's reasoning to the Captain as to why his gang had shaved heads came from a short story in 'Neon Wilderness' the heists are slight variations, the boxing accounts are the same etc etc.
This doesn't make Algren anything other than what he is-a great (Thomas Wolfe just wrote 'Look Homeward Angel' over and over again with slight variations and nobody disputes his greatness) it just means that his scope is limited, and 'Neon Wilderness' would perhaps be all you ever need to read to get the whole Algren repartee.
But for all that-and even though Algrens Chicago is long since dead-this is great reading

2007-08-15 | Mr Wobble (uk) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Gritty americana from a forgotten master
Never come morning is a exquisite novel of pain and dark urban reality. What makes Algren a better writer than so many others who work in this mileiu is that he doesn't moralize or create one-dimensional heroes. His characters pull you in because they have the complexity and tragic failings of real people. The imagery walks the line between the surreal and the actual, dreams interwoven with the brutal waking reality of inner-city poverty. This book alone puts Algren, who never got much fame and certainly not fortune for his work, on the map of great American writers.

2006-12-02 (New Orleans, LA) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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Gritty, but hollow novel about a thug and his life..
From previous reviews, I got the idea that "Never come Morning" would be gritty, and a masterpiece. Well, that's not the case. It is quite gritty, with EVERYONE a crook, from a Polish barber who is also a pimp, from the one-eyed police detective. The story follows Bruno, a thug who dreams of well..being the Great White Hope. Of course, we know he's a thug, and will always be nothing but a thug. Bruno and his thuggish friends talk in a Chicago dialect that grates on your nerves. Algren is not Mark Twain, so it further alienates the reader when you want to hear English you can recognize. I felt zero sypathy for Bruno's predicament, and I felt sick that Steffi would see anything in this character.

2004-08-30 (worcester ma) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 2

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The Man with the Golden Arm

Description

Back in print at last is this masterwork of one of the truly original voices in 20th-century American literature. Chicago card dealer and junkie Frankie Machine is as tough as anyone in the Windy City's underworld--but not tough enough to break his habit. This fiction classic was made into an acclaimed film directed by Otto Preminger, starring Frank Sinatra.

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Customer Reviews

Ernest Hemingway was Correct
When The Man with the Golden Arm came out, the great Hemingway himself wrote a stellar review for Algren. Hemingway being a less than polite figure of course trashed many of his peers along the way. Hemingway said the book does more than throw a punch. Algren uses both hands and moves around and he will even kill you if you're not careful. Of course he was speaking in metaphor. But true, nonetheless. The syntax can be very difficult to read. But Algren writes with such grit. The characters are raw. There is no sugar coating in his book. The characters are dyfunctional but real. He takes us through the world of a junky after the Second World War. And that world is anything but pretty. Algren writes with such depth and emotion. One ends up having symphany for some of these characters, including Frankie Machine. A well written book. I would advise any of my friends to take the time to actually read it. Algren doesn't spell anything out for the reader. One probably won't even get the point of the book until the first hundred pages. But the scenes and characters are written with such beautiful and raw poetry. One just easily gets lost within the prose. It doesn't matter if you're not getting it. The writing is amazing. But the book is most definetly not for faint of heart. It does take some guts to read this book.

2010-05-19 | Jessica (San Diego, CA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Lion
The double edged sword about being able to post Amazon reviews is that mere mortals like us are able to comment on giants like Algren. Something I, for one, feel like I have no business doing. But here I am. So. A lesser writer could have wrought at least 3 books from this one; it's that densely and intensely packed. And probably made more money too. But clearly this was never Algren's way. I struggled through at least 35 pages of street slang catching bits and pieces of these characters until I could hear their voices. Poor, broken, despairing voices. The prose, the writing, the characters, are unforgettable. The sheer weight of it began to crush me by the end and I actually felt somewhat glad for Frankie at the end. At least relieved.

2009-11-18 | acadia2431 (Pennsylvania) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Lyrical, hard hitting brilliance
This is a stunning novel. It's centred around a group of Chicago low lives and addicts, and it lives and breaths a type of humanity that rarely surfaces in fiction.

Algren's prose style is beautiful and evocative, and this novel is truly a major piece of art. Amazing.

2008-09-22 (Manchester, England) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Down Those Mean Streets
Growing up in a post World War II built housing project this reviewer knew first hand the so-called `romance' of drugs, the gun, the ne'er do well hustler and the mechanisms one needed to develop to survive at that place where the urban working poor meet and mix with the lumpen proletariat- the con men, dopesters, grifters drifters and gamblers who feed on the downtrodden. This is definitely not the mix that Damon Runyon celebrated in his Guys and Dolls-type stories. Far from it.

Nelson Algren has gotten, through hanging around Chicago police stations and sheer ability to observe, that sense of foreboding, despair and just plain oblivion of America's mean streets down pat in a number of works, including this one. Here the plot revolves around Frankie Machine an urban hustler with a jones (and more than just the dope jones, his whole life is twisted by the vagaries of his fate). Alone the way we meet an array of stoolies, cranks, crackpots and nasty brutish people who are more than willing to put obstacles in the way of our anti-hero. And we have, at this point, not even mentioned his `home' life with his `ever-loving' disabled wife (or so he thinks). She might make anyone reach for the needle.

We, of late, have become rather inured to dope stories either of the death and destruction type or of the rehabilitation kind but at the time that this story was put together in the late 1940's this was something of an eye-opener for those who were not familiar with the seamy side of urban life. The dead end jobs, the constant run-ins with the `authorities' in the person of the police, many times corrupt as well. The dread of going to work, the dread of not going to work, the fear of being victimized and the glee of victimizing. The whole jumbled mix on people with few prospects and fewer dreams. Algren has put it down in writing for all that care to read. These are not pretty stories. And he has centered his story on the trials and tribulations of a dope addict trying to get clean, to boot. That fight is a near thing. Damn, as much as I knew about the kind of things that Algren was describing this is still one gripping story. And, the truth be told, you know as well as I do that unfortunately this story could still be written today. Read Algren if you want to walk on the wild side.

2008-06-06 (boston, ma) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Reading Nelson Algren

This is a wonderful book! Nelson Algren knocks spots off of his contemporaries;chiefly because he actually lived the lives of those he wrote about.
The language is fabulously arkane and is only just seeping into everyday usage.We now know that a 'mark' is a person about to be 'hustled'(ie conned and robbed) and thanks to TV poker we know what the punk has when he looks at 3 J's wired! Unfortuneately,we also know all the drug terms as well.
The plot is wafer thin and largely irrelevent-Frankie Machine kills Louie the pusher;his run ins with the law;his dead beat marriage and affair with Molly-O-;its the cast of division line Chicago slum dwellers that are everything.If you read this fishing for a plot to hook into,you'll soon get lost.But if you read each segmented paragraph as a short story in its own right that merges into a bigger picture;you can't fail to love this magnificent book.Dickens never had such a cast of characters to call on!

2006-05-26 | Mr Wobble (uk) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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The Neon Wilderness

Product Details

• ISBN13: 9781583225509
• Notes: BUY WITH Poise, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and professional care to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Proviso: New

Description

The stories in The Neon Wilderness established Algren in the pantheon of American writers and formed the vein that he mined for all his subsequent novels and stories. Included are "A Bottle of Milk for Mother," about a youth being cornered for a murder, "The Face on the Barroom Floor," in which a legless man nearly pummels someone to death, and "So Help Me," Algren’s first published story. "Algren’s short stories are now generally acknowledged to be literary triumphs." — The New York Times

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Customer Reviews

a rambling mess of forgettable stories
Sorry, but I have to completely disagree with the other reviewers. 'The Neon Wilderness' contains several stories of down-and-outs living in Chicago in the 1940s. Although the author has the local language and the feel of the streets down pat, he forgot to write anything *interesting*. The characters are generally not likable or encourage sympathy, and oftentimes the prose is utterly incomprehensible. Nope, I really didn't like this book at all.


Bottom line: this book does not deliver a pleasant reading experience.

2009-11-14 (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2

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A Walk On The Wild Side-Hold On
Parts of this review were used in a review of Algren's classic Man With The Golden Arm. These short stories reflect the same milieu that Algren worked in that novel. Algren throughout his literary career was working that same small vein- but what a mother lode he produced.

Growing up in a post World War II built housing project this reviewer knew first hand the so-called `romance' of drugs, the gun and the ne'er do well hustler. And also the mechanisms one needed to develop to survive at that place where the urban working poor meet and mix with the lumpen proletariat- the con men, dopesters, grifters drifters and gamblers who feed on the downtrodden. This is definitely not the mix that Damon Runyon celebrated in his Guys and Dolls-type stories. Far from it. Just read "A Bottle of Milk For Mother".

Nelson Algren has gotten, through hanging around Chicago police stations and the sheer ability to observe, that sense of foreboding, despair and of the abyss of America's mean streets down pat in a number of works, including this collection of his better stories. Along the way we meet an array of stoolies, cranks, crackpots and nasty brutish people who are more than willing to put obstacles in the way of anyone who gets in their way. Read "A Face On The Barroom Floor"- that will put you straight. But to what end. They lose in the end, and drag others down with them.

We, of late, have become rather inured to lumpen stories either of the death and destruction type or of the rehabilitative kind but at the time that these stories were put together in the late 1940's and early 1950's this was something of an eye-opener for those who were not familiar with the seamy side of urban life. The dead end jobs, the constant run-ins with the `authorities' in the person of the police, many times corrupt as well. The dread of going to work, the dread of not going to work, the fear of being victimized and the glee of victimizing. The whole jumbled mix of people with few prospects and fewer dreams.

Algren has put it down in writing for all that care to read. These are not pretty stories. And he has centered his stories on the trials and tribulations of gimps, prostitutes and other hustlers. Damn, as much as I knew about the kind of things that Algren was describing these are still gripping stories. And, if the truth were told, you know as well as I do that unfortunately these stories could still be written today. Read Algren if you want to walk on the wild side.

2008-06-20 (boston, ma) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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"Under any old moon at all."
I haven't read any Algren before The Neon Wilderness & was moved to do so by my recent visit to Chicago. I've been told that his stories are the place to begin. I have to confess that before this I mostly knew Algren as de Beauvoir's Lewis Brogan in The Mandarins.

It took me a little while to warm up to the stories. That's at least a little bit because he led with the story which, in my opinion, is the weakest in the book: "the captain has bad dreams". The stories do get better from there, so persevere.

All of the stories are gritty. There is not a lot of hope in his world. Life is mean, and times are hard. It sounds like a cliche, but not the way Algren writes it. He is deservedly considered a master of the short story form. I particularly liked "poor man's pennies" and "the brothers' house". I was less enchanted with the boxing stories. But, honestly, that's probably me and not Algren-- still too much of a girl to be fascinated with fighting.

Recommended, particularly if you are interested in the short story.

2007-09-16 | frumiousb (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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The Definitive Algren Book
If you only have time to read one Algren book and want to know what he is all about, then 'Neon Wilderness' is the tome to get.
It acts as a template for all Algrens repartee; life on Division street, the pimps, the hustlers, the corruption, the prostitutes. Life for the people whom the American dream is pure illusion. They survive in a world of crime by crime, yet they're always the ones who get punished;always the games biggest losers.
Many of the stories in 'Neon Wilderness' have appeared either slightly altered or in elongated form in Algrens other works. The line ups in the jail feature everywhere in Algrens novels.'Face on the Barroom Floor' 'Bottle of milk for Mother' in 'Walk on the Wild Side' and 'Never come Morning'
Algren just basically wrote the same novels over and over with slightly different takes;sometimes humouress, sometimes bleak. He wrote about the people and life he knew in his Chicago.
Read this and you will have Algren in a nutshell. BUt its well worth catching his other works-despite the feeling of deja-vu they give you!

2007-08-18 | Mr Wobble (uk) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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CLASSIC IS RIGHT!
A true marvel. Not many writers come close. Nelson Algren is at the very top of the heap: original, compassionate, funny, insightful. You know, we read many books, and once we have finished with the book we toss it aside and forget about it. With Algren it's different. You read his stuff and can't help feeling cheated at not having known the man, not having ever had a chance to meet the guy. Wish there was a way to sit down and have a beer with the man, light up a stogie and have a good chat with the genius who created this masterful story collection. The writing is gritty and true, heartfelt. Brings to mind several other writers who had this knack of writing in this kind of honest, unflinching style: John O'Brien (Leaving Las Vegas), B. Traven (take your pick: Treasure of Sierra Madre, Cottonpickers, etc.) Knut Hamsun (Hunger), Eugene O'Neill (Long Day's Journey Into Night), Celine (Journey to the End of the Night), Kirk Alex (Working the Hard Side of the Street), Chester Himes (If He Hollers Let Him Go).
All of the above had their own style, of course, but the thing they had in common was in the balls they showed by not flinching away from the gritty, life lived by so many who weren't born with deep pockets, who didn't have it easy.

Writing from the gut. Algren lives. Read THE NEON WILDERNESS, and give some of the others a try as well.
This is writing for people who love books and love to read. Shut your TV sets off and pick up a good book--and you can start right here, with Algren's story collectiion.

2002-10-30 | Helpful Votes: 10 | Rating: 5

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Nelson Algren: A Life on the Wild Side

Description

Nelson Algren lived a life of extremes - from a Texas jail to Sartre's Paris and a love affair with Simone de Beauvoir, Skid Row soup kitchens to Hollywood champagne parties and from public censorship to the National Book Award. This biography coincides with several reissues of his novels.

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