Waiting for Nothing and Other Writings

by Tom Kromer, Arthur D. Casciato (Editor), James L.W. West III (Editor)

In "Waiting for Nothing" and Other Writings, the works of the depression-era writer Tom Kromer are collected for the first time into a volume that depicts with searing realism life on the bum in the 1930s and, with greater detachment, the powerless frustration of working-class people often too locked in to know their predicament.Waiting for Nothing, Kromer's only completed novel, is largely autobiographical and was written at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in California. It tells the story of one man drifting through America, east coast to west, main stem to side street, endlessly searching for "three hots and a flop"--food and a place to sleep. Kromer scans, in first-person voice, the scattered events, the stultifying sameness, of "life on the vag"--the encounters with cops, the window panes that separate hunger and a "feed," the bartering with prostitutes and homosexuals.In "Michael Kohler," Kromer's unfinished novel, the harsh existence of coal miners in Pennsylvania is told in a committed, political voice that reveals Kromer's developing affinity with leftist writers including Lincoln Steffens and Theodore Dreiser. An exploration of Kromer's proletarian roots, "Michael Kohler" was to be a political novel, a story of labor unions and the injustices of big management. Kromer's other work ranges from his college days, when he wrote a sarcastic expose of the bums in his hometown titled "Pity the Poor Panhandler: $2 an Hour Is All He Gets," to the sensitive pieces of his later life--short stories, articles, and book reviews written more out of an aching understanding of suffering than from the slick formulas of politics.

Waiting for Nothing remains, however, Kromer's most powerful achievement, a work Steffens called "realism to the nth degree." Collected here as the major part of Kromer's oeuvre, Waiting for Nothing traces the author's personal struggle to preserve human virtues and emotions in the face of a brutal and dehumanizing society.

Genres: History, The United States Of America, LGBT, Classics, United States, Literary Fiction, Nonfiction

297 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1986

About the author

Thomas Michael Kromer was born Huntington, West Virginia from a family of Czech immigrants, firstborn of five brothers. He attended to Marshall College (now University) but with the 1929's Great Depression he begun to live like a hobo through the States for five years. He published the account of this experience in his only book Waiting for nothing.

The book is a a realistic account of life as a homeless man during the Great Depression. There is no overarching theme to the novel, which is a collection of anecdotes. Except for a few stories, Kromer said the incidents in the novel were autobiographical.
Straightforward, declarative sentences in the tough-guy argot of the time are characteristic of Kromer, as are spare descriptions of grim scenes. The settings include rescue missions, flop houses, abandoned buildings and the sidewalk outside a nice restaurant. In one chapter, the narrator slowly comes to realize that the pitch-black boxcar he is riding in contains another rider, who is quietly, slowly, stalking him.

After the publication in 1935 he tried several times to write another book but the project never materialized. He married in 1936, and stopped his writing carrer by 1940, in this period he also contracted tubercolosis. After he spent some years in Albuquerque, he returned to his hometown where he died on 10th January 1969, it has been speculated by suicide.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the stories that I feel has been told least, especially in the various versions of the canon read in school, is during the Great Depression. Not a story of a family on a farm and not stories of the roaring twenties. But the story of a well-educated, middle-class man who loses everything. What matters in the novel is not what he had before the crash or what happens to him afterwards, those parts of his life do not exist for him anymore; all that matters is the present. And Tom's present (the protagonist is named for the author upon whose life the book is based) is full of starvation, pan-handling, death, fleeting relationships and the iconic rail-riding images of Depression-era America is filled with.

Waiting for Nothing takes most of our notions of the Depression and turns them on its head. An absolute MUST for anyone interested in American writing between the teens and the forties. It's sure to be a story you haven't heard.

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best dedication ever:

To Jolene
who turned off the gas

[Rod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like John Fante or Charles Bukowski, Tom Kromer was a master of the down-and-out hard luck story, unflinchingly telling it like it is with a mordant wit. Kromer writes in an unusual, somewhat stilted and repetitive style, but his writing has an immediacy and sense of lived-in reality that is very compelling. Now that I think about it, the writing and the episodic nature of the storytelling remind me most of Emmanuel Bove’s My Friends. It has a similar feel with short, sharp sentences and careworn first-person protagonist. More or less a series of vignettes, the chapters work almost as separate short stories—only occasionally referring to events in previous chapters to let you know that this is a linear, cohesive narrative—but together have a cumulative power, painting a picture of man in desperate straits as he struggles from day to day in search of “three hots and a flop.” This is fabulous stuff. A must-read for fans of AK Press/Nabat Books and hobo literature.

[Harvey J.]

An iconic book by an iconic writer. Little known in the field of literature, but Tom Kromer writes with the power of the greatest of authors. This anthology highlights his single book - a first hand description of living as a "down and out" during the Great Depression, as well as several short stories and book reviews which exhibit the latitude of Kromer's talents. A reward for the adventuresome reader.

[Kiof]

Less hardboiled, more microwaved. A book of prose heated in a rush, drained of any fluid to the point of being practically burnt. Fans of Beckett's trilogy should take a look here, and see another route to that kind of dissolution.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

fantastic.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

WAITING FOR NOTHING, a novel and other writings by Tom Kromer is important both historically and as a unique literary achievement. It is one of the most authentic, as well as beautifully written, fiction documents of the Great Depression. Kromer lived the life he describes in this novel. Also included in the book are five chapters of a novel unfinished at his death, as well several short stories and nonfiction pieces, all inspired by his own life and the lives of his family. The hardship of his life, much of it spent on the road during the Depression and before, finally destroyed him physically, just as working in a glass-blowing factory gave his father the cancer that killed him. However, Kromer transformed his material through his craft into powerful works of art, the language spare and unflinching, the characters honest and challenging, the scenes powerful and often painful. Although this book was written decades ago, it has great meaning today in another era when the gap between rich and poor is ever greater and the numbers of poor are rapidly increasing. WAITING FOR NOTHING AND OTHER WRITINGS is required reading by anyone who cares about both literature and society.

[Pep Bonet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Waiting for nothing is a rare product, the story of depression bums moving around the US in search of a place to eat and to sleep. The story is told by a guy who was a bum himself and is written in the language of roving hobos. It makes a wonderful story, or rather a succssion of short episodes, most of them real and the rest adapted from real situations in which Kromer was involved. The book is poignant, expecially because it doesn't try to be combattant or pedagogic or demagogic. It's just stories as lived by the author.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book is not of the same level. Kromer produced so little that all his works are collected in such a short book. The four stars go for Waiting for nothing.

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually really enjoyed this book. It appears semi-autobiographical, it can't be verified because little is known of Kromer's life. The simplicity and lack or underuse of adjectives seems to lend realism to these events, suggesting that if some did not happen to him personally they happened to someone he knew intimately. I actually found parts of it humorous amongst the bleakness. I'd honestly recommend it if you're looking for a book about a stiff. It's mimetic, each chapter a separate event, not necessarily in chronological order. In the end all he wants is three hots and a flop, same as the start of the novel.

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came upon this sadly neglected book after reading a Breece Pancake biography 'A Room Forever' several years ago now. It's not hard to see how the themes appealed to Pancake, who became part of the effot to bring Kromer's work back into the world of the published. But then Pancake killed himself,as you all likely know, and never got to finish the job. Still, this is a great, if uneven, book.

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relatively unknown, Kromer was a homeless guy in the Depression who writes about it at times as if he's channeling Gertrude Stein, who wasn't yet dead.

[Shawn Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting book from the era of the Great Depression

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see homeless people differently after reading this book
Lots of dignity....

[Randy Cauthen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely realistic portrayal of life at the bottom during the last Great Depression.

[Tina. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read Waiting for Nothing, but couldn't find the edition I have on here. After reading this, I definitely want to check out other writings by Kromer as well.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very candid autobiography of a homeless man during the great depression.

[Zack · Rating 4 out of 5]

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