The Thumbnail Book Reviews

by John Q McDonald --- 17 February 1998

Nonconformity

Writing on Writing

by Nelson Algren

In this long essay, Algren savages the literary world as he saw it during the height of Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts. Coming off the stinging experience of selling the screenplay of The Man with the Golden Arm, Algren felt his work to be deeply unappreciated. This bitterness spawned this remarkable book. It is a complex work, calling in to action writers such as Mark Twain, William Faulkner and Richard Wright. Most sympathetic to Algren was F. Scott Fitzgerald, who also suffered for his labors. The book is a stinging indictment of conformity on many levels. Algren demanded a lot of authors; honesty, and deep compassion for the forgotten hoardes of poor and downtrodden. And he names McCarthy as the pinnacle of a dispicable acquisitive culture. The book deserves several readings, as it casts a shining light on Algren's own motivations and methods. This edition, written in 1953, but first published in 1996, has a generous afterword by Daniel Simon, which sets the context for the essay. An appendix also includes Algren's ironic retelling of his Hollywood experiences. Nonconformity is a darkly brilliant book.

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Also by Nelson Algren: [A Walk on the Wild Side]