Never Come Morning

by Nelson Algren

Barcelona. 18 cm. 316 p. 1 h. Encuadernación en tapa blanda de editorial con sobrecubierta. Colección 'Libros "Reno"', numero coleccion(v. 265). Algren, Nelson 1909-1981. Traduccion de Jesus Lopez Pacheco. López Pacheco, Jesús. 1930-1997 .. Este libro es de segunda mano y tiene o puede tener marcas y señales de su anterior propietario.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Novels, American, The United States Of America, 20th Century, American Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

People note American writer Nelson Algren for his novels, including The Man with the Golden Arm (1949), about the pride and longings of impoverished people.

Born of Swedish-immigrant parents, Nelson Ahlgren Abraham moved at an early age to Chicago. At University of Illinois, he studied journalism. His experiences as a migrant worker during the Depression provided the material for his first Somebody in Boots (1935). Throughout life, Algren identified with the underdog. From 1936 to 1940, the high-point of left-wing ideas on the literary scene of the United States, he served as editor of the project in Illinois. After putting the finishing touches to his second, he in 1942 joined and enlisted for the war. Never Come Morning received universal acclaim and eventually sold more than a million copies.

A dark naturalist style of Algren passionately records the details of trapped urban existence with flashes of melancholy poetry. He characterizes the lowlife drifters, whores, junkies, and barflies of row. He records the bravado of their colloquial language and lays their predicament bare.

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edited update 5/8/18

I am so glad I finally read the classic Chicago novel by once famous Chicago realist writer Algren, who once was touted by fellow Chicago writer Ernest Hemingway as one of the two best Chicago writers ever. This is technically (as I learned, not from my own reading) his second novel, the first being a book influenced by his connections with John Reed, Marxist ideology, and Communism, and the book (I am told) reads like a diatribe, filled with quasi-Marxist slams on capitalism.

That critique is still implicitly here, but better informed by literary rather than merely ideological influences. It's not a political diatribe, it's novel, in other words. Never Come Morning is set in the "Triangle" area of Chicago during the Depression, and chiefly focuses on a group of very poor folks struggling to survive terrible conditions. And without a safety net. The main character is Bruno (Lefty, Lefthander, Bunny) Bicek (also Biceps), a former baseball pitcher, now boxer, girlfriend Steffi. I won't spoil the plot for you, but two or three horrific things happen that land Bruno in Cook County Jail for awhile. There's a colorful gang of characters, including a barber who owns a House of Prostitution run by Mama T. It's not the romanticized view of rags to riches prostitution featured in the 2018 Chicago production of Pretty Woman, let's just say.

This book seems less about plot than characters in desperate and convincing peril. And it's also an exercise in atmosphere, tone, and unsentimental descriptions of Chicago poverty, centering on Bicek's jail time and the House of Prostitution. And then at the end it is again about action, a fight, and the resolution of a contract between the barber, Bicek and Steffi. Algren is not sappy, and he's not necessarily an apologist for the poor; at times his is not a very sympathetic view of the poor, who in one chapter heading, are ultimately responsible for much of what befalls them.

Language, colloquial language, the language of immigrants, racist and sexist language, is important to the book and Algren's reputation. Tough and poetic prose. Poetic descriptions of the Chicago landscape and soundscape abound; some theme-pointing happens, but in my opinion he's largely letting the story proceed without political commentary. This according to reputation is maybe his fourth best book, an early effort, but I wanted to read it for my clas because it is about young people, principally Steffi and Bruno/Bunny, and what happens to them in their teen, growing up, years. I had a hard time getting into it at first and was disappointed sometimes by the loss of plot in the center of the book, but I really did like it a lot, finally. Years later, it stays with you.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book ever written about Chicago. Maybe the most brutal book ever read either.

[Andrew]

I am a proud bannerman for Nelson Algren, forgotten titan of American naturalism, proud prairie radical, and a man who could probably out-Hemingway Hemingway in terms of dipsomania and arrogance. Of Algren's novels that I've read, though, Never Come Morning is far and away the weakest. Perhaps it's because it's an early work, but there's none of the rapturous prose of The Man With the Golden Arm or Walk on the Wild Side. Stick to those two, and while you're around, read Dos Passos, Dreiser, and Tarkington -- no one does anymore, and in our new gilded age, American social realism is long overdue for a revival.

[Xenja · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Italia Algren è poco conosciuto: quasi più per essere stato un grande amore di Simone de Beauvoir (nelle sue memorie lei ha raccontato per filo e per segno la loro storia, tormentata e dolorosa) che per essere stato un ottimo scrittore. Eppure è così, e sarebbe il caso di stampare o ristampare i suoi romanzi, che non si trovano più. Algren, intellettuale di sinistra, amante dei poveri e degli emarginati, è stato il cantore dei bassifondi di Chicago, negli anni Trenta, Quaranta, Cinquanta: vagabondi, immigrati, puttane, ruffiani, drogati, gangs, giocatori d'azzardo e pugili di strada (ricordate l'Uomo dal braccio d'oro?) e nessun altro lo ha fatto così bene.
Questo è uno splendido romanzo, forse il suo capolavoro, ma attenzione, è per lettori duri: crudele, violento, cinico, amaro.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 4 out of 5]

(This is part 2 of a special 14-part essay series I'm writing this year, examining in detail nearly the entire ouevre of controversial Chicago author Nelson Algren, on the occasion of his 100th birthday. For an introduction to this series, as well as links to all the other essays, you can click here for the special page at the CCLaP website.)

As any artist who's gone through the experience can tell you, it can be humiliating to be publicly spanked for a high-profile yet deeply flawed project from early in one's career; thus seems to have been the case, for example, with Nelson Algren's first novel, 1935's communist apologia Somebody in Boots, which he and his radical-leftist friends had whipped themselves up into believing was going to be a controversial bestseller when finally coming out, but that the public in general ended up finding just too dour, melodramatic and politically pointed, selling only 800 copies in the entire first year of its release. And thus is it that a year later, Algren had what suspiciously seems now like a short nervous breakdown (hard to confirm, in that he voluntarily destroyed all records of the incident when older); and thus is it that more than half a decade would pass* before he was to write his next book, 1942's Never Come Morning which fans count as the practical start of his "real" (i.e. mature) career. So the question begs to be asked, then: what exactly happened in these seven years to bring about such a change? What did Algren do to make his second novel turn out to be as intensely loved as his first novel was intensely ridiculed?

Well, to start with, according to Bettina Drew's 1989 biography Nelson Algren: A Life on the Wild Side, Algren eventually rid himself of the earnest communist friends who so heavily and negatively influenced Boots; although make no mistake, this was a gradual process, and a part of why it took him so long to write his second book in the first place. And indeed, by the late 1930s, it seemed that communist-sympathizing radical leftism had invaded nearly every aspect of Algren's life, tying them together in complicated and incestuous ways: from the "Rat Alley" where he and all his friends lived (a series of leftover World's Fair storefronts at 35th and Cottage Grove, rented at a pittance as funky living spaces to poor artists); to the John Reed Club where they all socialized and discussed politics; to the League of American Writers they all professionally belonged to; to the radical New Anvil literary journal that they all published together; even to the office where they all held day jobs, the Illinois chapter of Roosevelt's Work Projects Administration (or WPA), a New Deal program designed to get small yet steady paychecks to artists during the Great Depression, where they would all spend half the day drinking and the other half writing a series of left-leaning tourism brochures concerning various Illinois landmarks.

These were the people who inspired much of the worst elements of Boots (the pretentious Marx quotes, the self-righteous preaching), a group that Algren closely identified himself with throughout the entirety of both his twenties and the Great Depression in general; but by the time of his 30th birthday in 1939, the local communist community had devolved into the two violently competing camps found in the Soviet Union in those years as well, the so-called "Stalinists" versus "Trotskyists" (with most Reed members falling squarely on the side of Stalinism), which instead of inspiring Algren to choose sides himself made him more and more disgusted with the Party in general. And mind you, this was at the same time that the entire focus of communism shifted more and more into the fight against fascism, suddenly rearing its ugly head in those years in such diverse locations as Germany, Japan, Norway, Spain and a lot more; and this suddenly turned a lot of American Communists into war-championing sabre-rattlers, a profoundly unsettling turn of events for the deeply pacifistic Algren. (And indeed, it was the gradually dawning human-rights horrors of Stalinist Russia that eventually put the kibosh on American Communism as a serious political movement, which was then officially killed by the McCarthy witch-hunts of the 1950s.)

Now combine this with the fact that Algren's misfated youthful first marriage happened to peter out in those same years (but more on Algren's lovelife in a later essay), and that this gave him a good excuse to move away from all his earnest commie friends in Rat Alley and into his now infamous apartment in the "Polish Triangle" of the northwest side (but more on Algren's troubled relationship with the Wicker Park area in a future essay as well); and you can see why it might be that Algren found himself right around 1940 not only starting to write extensively again, but this time with a whole new attention to basic literary issues, and with not nearly as much of an insistence anymore on trying to make a political point, preach a sermon, or turn in "only projects that uphold the ideals of the State," as good little Stalinists were expected to do. But perhaps the one event in those years to have the greatest single effect on Algren starting to write again would be the 1940 publication of Native Son, the literary debut of another young Chicago author (and now New Yorker) who was one of Algren's best friends at the time, civil-rights pioneer and fellow conflicted communist sympathizer Richard Wright.

Essentially the same kind of story as Algren's own debut Boots but from a black perspective, and with a complicated series of details tying the two manuscripts together (for example, the fact that "Native Son" was supposed to have been the title of Algren's book, stolen with permission by Wright after Algren's publisher nixed it), it was Wright's novel that turned into the precise controversial bestseller that everyone had expected Boots to be, not only selling an astounding quarter-million copies in just its first six months, and getting adapted into a high-profile play by Orson Welles, but inspiring declarations nationwide of Wright being the "American Dostoevsky," and singlehandedly kickstarting the entire genre now known as African-American literature. To have all these things happen to such a good friend with such a similar book was apparently inspiring enough; but according to Drew, to have Wright then actually dedicate Native Son to Algren (calling him right on the front page "the best writer in the U.S.A.") was apparently an emotionally overwhelming experience for him, and inspired Algren to finally get serious about the new stories he was putting together, and to "live up" to the expectations that Wright had established on his dedication page.

Now, this being Algren, of course it took another two years, countless missed deadlines, the outbreak of a world war, and a story at the end barely resembling the one he started with; but in 1942 he finally made good on that Wright declaration, delivering the provocatively-titled** Never Come Morning not exactly to great fanfare, but certainly to the excitement of many literary intellectuals, the group who from the first day of his career to his last ended up embracing him more than the consuming public in general, ironic given Algren's usual company and book subjects. It's essentially set among the same group of people as his first novel, the lowest of the low in pre-civil-rights big-city America; in this case, a series of young low-class Poles spiritually centered around the tricornered intersection of Division, Ashland and Milwaukee Avenues (where the triangle in the "Polish Triangle" comes from), a "gang" of sorts made up of struggling athletes, petty criminals, the mentally retarded and more, all of them living a slippery semi-homeless life where half their time is spent in rotting crowded slums with abusive alcoholic parents, the other half in secret lean-to shelters in tucked-away corners under el tracks and the like, both environments nearly equal in both cleanliness and safety. Algren takes a broad look at a whole wide swath of these characters, plus of course the prostitutes and fellow criminals they are constantly in and out of troubled romances with, the older mafia-like fight promoter and neighborhood barber who keeps a hold over them all, and a lot of other incidental characters thrown in; but ultimately the story mostly becomes the one of Bruno "Lefty" Bicek, a dimwitted aspiring boxer and neighborhood baseball coach, and the incredibly complicated relationship he has with the vain, equally empty-headed eventual prostitute Steffi Rostenkowski.

But the first important thing to understand about Never Come Morning is just how differently he treats this environment than he did in his first novel, a reflection of a new habit in his daily life that his friends remarked upon quite regularly back then; that ever since the implosion of his first heavily-hyped book, and especially since the growing emotional distance between he and his former Reed friends, Algren had come to more and more intensely embrace the relative importance of developing complex characters and environments over developing a complex plot, starting to now refer regularly to his nights of back-alley carousing as "professional research" and the reams of notes he took while at gambling dens and bordellos as his "official data." And indeed, when reading this book like I did for the first time last week, it's quite obvious right from the very beginning of how different it is from Somebody in Boots, even while sharing many of the same tropes and settings. Gone are the pedantic little speeches, the overblown melodrama of one traumatic disaster after another after another; and in its place is an expansion of what Algren got right in Boots, a kind of sense-heavy thoroughness to the mental images he was painting along the way, now allowing us to luxuriously lose ourselves within the actual environment where all these terrible things are taking place, letting the terribleness of the actual events speak for themselves instead of the author having to continually beat us over the head with The Important Point He Is Trying To Make.

But that said, what quickly becomes the second realization upon reading this is just how much better a plotline Algren does end up putting together for this than for Boots, methodically sewing together a whole series of small, seemingly unrelated events to eventually tell a much bigger and grander story; and this is yet another ironic aspect of Never Come Morning, in that one of the biggest complaints about it from early readers as Algren was finishing up was its plotless, meandering nature. In fact, this has turned out to be one of the biggest surprises since starting this project, learning just what a dual impact both Algren and Wright had on each other's careers, given that one is now a literary legend and the other semi-obscure; because according to Drew, it was not only Wright himself to first suggest that the plot of the book needed a lot of tightening up (news that the older, calmer Algren took a lot better than the changes proposed to Boots by James T. Farrell a decade previously), but it was Wright who actually sat down and literally helped Algren hammer out this better, tighter storyline.

For example, in its original form, half of the story took place in East Saint Louis, Missouri, where Algren actually knew a similar poor immigrant streetgang of sorts who called themselves the "Fallonites" (after the tough Modernist writer Bud Fallon who recorded their exploits); it was Wright who convinced Algren to move the entire thing just to Chicago, even though many of the stories you read in it actually took place in East Saint Louis in real life. This then allowed the same small group of characters to be tied to all the dramatic events that happen throughout; instead of Steffi, for example, being gang-raped as a prostitute in St. Louis in part one and then eventually meeting Lefty in Chicago in part two, as Algren originally had it, now Lefty and Steffi are kind of going together in part one, and its his cowardly refusal to defend her when the neighborhood boys gang-rape her one night that eventually leads her to prostitution, not the other way around. And so this then let Algren add a remarkably heavy and very Modernist complication to it all that wasn't there before, Lefty's ongoing guilt over allowing something like that to happen without putting up a fight, his eventual deliberate letting-go of any hope of having a normal romantic relationship with a woman, hence a letting-go of hope altogether, even while exhaustedly admitting that this is simply the fate of the very poor in the first place, that such fancy terms as "justice" and "loyalty" and "dignity" are reserved only for those with enough money to afford them. And this is a much better way to get these points across than how Algren did it in Boots, which was to sit down and lecture us, so no wonder this second novel marks such a profound jump in literary maturity.

But perhaps the single greatest change between the two, and I'm convinced the main reason that Algren finally started getting recognized more and more by the general public with this one, is that he no longer felt the need to endlessly smack us in the face with a never-ceasing series of soul-killing tragedies; the lumpen losers of Never Come Morning, God forbid, actually manage to have a little fun at small isolated moments, actually manage to conjure up a little hope for the future for short periods of time. It's the charming yet Bukowsky-like evening out that Lefty and Steffi have in part one that makes us fall in love with them in the first place, which is why his betrayal hits us so heavily, and why his complex reaction to it keeps us so fascinated; all of these revelations are missing from Boots, precisely because Algren never gave the story a chance to breathe, never gave us these smaller and lighter moments that allow us to empathize and connect with the characters in the first place. It was an important lesson for him to learn, one that stuck with him the rest of his life, that for a general audience to sympathize with the plight of the badly-off, there has to be some sort of common connection made between them, a common yearning for a better tomorrow.

I don't think it's any surprise that Algren in those years went from being called an "American Gorky" by many to a "Yankee Faulkner" -- and in fact that's yet another difference between these two novels, that in the latter Algren finally and belatedly tries his hand a little at Modernist stream-of-consciousness dreamlike writing (er, and there's a reason why he's not known for it, either). And it's also no surprise I think that this novel did a whole lot better than Boots, both from a commercial standpoint and a critical one, and especially in terms of influence on other writers. (It was always a bitter irony of Algren's career, in fact, one that haunted him his entire life, that he had a tremendous impact on the American arts and letters, but with many of his disciples becoming much more culturally important than he.) So what perfectly bitter desserts for Algren, then, that this would be the exact time the business and religious leaders of the Polish Triangle would rise up against him, branding him a Nazi and getting his books banned in Chicago libraries for decades, for daring to expose to the nation a side of their neighborhoods they were spending so much time and money desperately trying to hide. But a lot more on this in the next essay in this series, which will take a detailed look at Algren's 1947 story collection, The Neon Wilderness. I hope you'll get a chance to join me again then.

*And a piece of trivia I never found a good place for in the main essay above: that right after the original release of Somebody in Boots in 1935 but before the disappointing sales, Algren put into motion plans for an even more ambitious "tetralogy" (four-book series) of related Chicago novels, each of them concentrating on one particular ethnic section of the city -- the Poles of the northside, the Italians of the westside, the blacks of the southside, and the Mexicans of southeast Chicago and Gary, Indiana -- a project that seems to have been permanently abandoned right around the time of Algren's supposed nervous breakdown in 1936. What a shame that he never revisited this idea later in life, I think now; it's an instantly intriguing concept, something that I could easily see coming out at an older age as his magnum opus.

**And again this being Algren, of course the title of this book went through several incarnations before its current form -- from the original White Hope (and talk about a provocative title; no wonder the eventual publisher was skittish about it), to the more pandering The Lost and the Lowly, to the headscratchingly Modernist He Shoulda Stood in Bed, to the title it now has.

[Veronica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am still processing the ending, as I just finished it four minutes ago, but I think I was fairly pleased with the novel. I will write more about it after I have time to reflect more, but it ended perfectly.

Edit - After months, perhaps I can express my opinions on this novel:

Basically, if you are looking for a beautiful story about Polish American's living in Chicago that makes the reader feel optimistic about society, do not read this book. If you want a gritty, realistic, noir like compendium of the disastrous sprawling Ukrainian Village area of Chicago and the issues between immigrants from Poland and the police, then read this book.

The author writes wonderful, but terrible, characters. It seems, at times, to be a character and setting study rather than a novel, but it is still excellent. The book is brutal, so please don't read this looking for pleasure.

My favorite scene would have to be the extended section about the many people in the prison giving their explanations for their crimes: It is both funny and informative. It adds almost nothing to the plot, if there really IS one plot, but it really sets the tone of the place and the relationship between cops and "criminals."

I do recommend this. Read it. Just don't expect a novel, a single story line, or something that will leave you feeling good about life.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Algren writes so damn well. His blow by blow descriptions of boxing matches are worth the price of admission. This book also affords readers a window into the desperation of ethnic Chicago before the advent of suburbia.

[Patrick Healy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book- Bicek's life in Chicago as a down and out boxer was really inspiring to me. I want to reread it. I read this when I was in high school.

[Lara Neel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I have no idea why Algren isn't as famous as Hemingway. His prose is as heartbreakingly gorgeous and well-constructed.

[Heidi Bakk-Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

For one, Nelson Algren writes better than anyone about boxing. Yes, even better than Hemingway.

It's kind of like Hemingway and Farrell had a Chicago baby named Nelson, but that would be disrespectful to all involved. Also, Nelson Algren is in a class all his own, despite only being known these days to a certain kind of Chicagoan.

When I lived in Algren's neighborhood, I was reading his work, and because of those images which felt so real and not so far away, I will always count him among my top two male authors. Which is funny because I am so very far from his intended audience.

In short, it's a romance written blow by blow between two boxing matches. Algren's Chicago is 1930s Polish Chicago, full of impoverished misery, delusional dreams, alcohol, and the everpresent grit of a place you can almost see and smell. (Also, mind, a protracted, terrible rape and sprinklings of casual racism.)

And here's an introduction written for the book in 1942 by Richard Wright:
https://www.sevenstories.com/blogs/22...

[Ben Richmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

At one point late in the book, through a bloody tooth-spitting haze, shortly before the police take him away for murder, which means he won't be able to rescue his girl who he turned into a prostitute, our main character sees CHICAGO in bold letters on the back of someone's jacket. I guess that sums it up.
Algren writes from a place of deep compassion, but constantly challenges his reader to feel for these characters, who are as flawed and ignorant and terrible as.... people. The prose is really incredible, moving from a simple and elegant narration, to an unobtrusive but complete vernacular. It's more than just a downer, but damn if I didn't feel down.

[Guy Salvidge · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been on an Algren kick lately. I read this after the more famous The Man With the Golden Arm but I actually preferred this earlier novel. It’s 280 pages of two-bit hustlers, illegal card games, corrupt cops and 18 year-old prostitutes circa 1940 Chicago. It’s the love story of Bruno ‘Lefty’ Bicek and Steffi R., a doomed romance if ever there was one. It’s about boxing, poverty and prison. Algren writes with unusual sympathy for all his characters, imbuing them with humanity and life. It’s a damn fine novel and one I can wholeheartedly recommend.

SECOND READING - well, it's still a good book but I found it a little tedious second time around.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

writing shows a true, unadorned understanding of the subject and the lives and society he is depicting. Nothing Didactic about it, unsettling and grim, but that's how it is, its not written for a calculated shock--that's key.

[Lynette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor Lefty made all the wrong decisions in life. This is a stark view of what life might have been like for a Polish immigrant in the late 30s. I'd classify it as a tragedy, but an interesting historically based story.

[justin louie · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 for the story, +1 for the interview at the end of this edition

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another stunningly beautiful novel by Algren. He writes about the underbelly of society like Fitzgerald writes about the upper crust.

[Stephanie Griffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m very drawn to Nelson Algren’s stories of hard-luck people in early 20th century Chicago. Man With The Golden Arm is my favorite so far.
Unknowingly, I purchased a shortened version of Never Come Morning, so I’ll need to get the full version read before writing a review.

[lyssa c · Rating 5 out of 5]

“‘Everyone lives in the same big room,’ she would tell herself as they rocked, ‘but nobody’s speakin’ to anyone else, ‘n nobody got a key.’ … ‘God has forgotten us all,’ Steffi R. told herself aloud, ‘He has even forgotten our names.’”

[Tam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me.

[Reet · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
Ay chihuahua, this was a hard book to read, because it's about the so-called low life of North Chicago in the 1930s.

Bruno and two of his chums steal a slot machine out of a roadhouse, falsely thinking that it's not registered with the syndicate:
"Embracing the machine with both hands, then bending it back on its single leg, he brought it off the floor, bringing part of the floor with it, and stumbled backward holding it. He packed it under his arm and Casey gave him interference toward the door. The woman was through the door before them both come holding her apron to her bleeding mouth and wailing. Bruno saw Casey reach her, pin her arms, and hold her at the door while Bruno got through it with the machine galloping heavily toward the car he heard it a sort of sickening splash, I still Casey had given it to her in the gut, and the fall of her body and the slam of the door. The attendance did rigidly come a pale intense, against the pump where finger had put him."
Algren has created the most cowardly, savage characters.

Steffi is Bruno's girlfriend. Her mom, the widow, owns the pool hall. Steffi really loves Bruno but he's a cowardly weak boy, who isn't good enough for her.
" 'let her alone, fellas,' he urged weakly.'
'Have a shot, Lefthander,' Catfoot offered, 'go ahead, keep the bottle, kill it. You're the champ t'night. I knew you was four-square all along. Go ahead, kill it.'
Bruno drank with his back turned to the couple in the corner, feigning not to hear the whimpering protest there. Funny, how a kid like that wouldn't ever bawl outright. And crept up the steps with the bottle in his hand. When he got into the light he saw there wasn't as much left in it as he thought.
He drank beneath the arc lamp, asking himself how soon Benkowski would get him the promised money fight, telling himself he had to figure that out for himself now; but able only to hear Kodedek's fevered breathing below. And Catfoot's noiseless laughter.
KNothole Chmura and John from the Schlitz Joint waited by the warehouse wall: Shadows within shadows. Bruno offered them the bottle and tried to grin. then his heart started sickeningly and turned over: Sheeny Louie, Coast-to-Coast, Punch-Drunk Czwartek, and Corner-Pockets.
'This one's on me, fellas,' Bruno explained, nodding toward the steps to the shed. KNothole went to where the arc lamps stood and got down on all fours to peer through the cracks of the walk.
'lookit ol' Kodadek you. C'mere. Lookit ol' Fireball go.' "
So Bruno allows Steffi to be gang raped by a couple dozen men or more.

Bruno is so drunk he doesn't even realize it when he kills a Greek immigrant that walks up to the waiting queue. Moreover, he and a couple of his Pals roll a drunk, and only meaning to scare him by shooting at HIS feet, the bullet ricochets and kills him. Again, he's so drunk he doesn't realize it.
The cops are looking for him now, and they pick him up. In jail, he has plenty of time for his conscience to awake.
"He could not know that his muffled conscience was crying out for a killing that would have been clear and definite and in the open: if the old man was dead Bicek [Bruno] would be punished, there would be no mercy, there would be no way of getting out of it. Bicek would pay all the rest of his life. And that was what, at heart, he wanted. He wanted it so, because of what he had made of Steffi R. He had snuck off with a bottle in his hand while the one human he loved had been turned into a loveless thing. And there was in his nature, so deep it had never before been sounded, the conviction that no punishment was too great for such a betrayal. Yet there was no way of paying for Steffi. There was no charge against him for that, there was nothing definite he could be accused of by her. She was alive and well, in the way that any woman who worked for the barber [sex worker] was alive and well. So he could not, even to himself, see his guilt clearly toward her."

Bruno is judged guilty and sent to the house of correction, probably a county lockup:
"the cells at the House of Correction had not been cleaned in many years. To the corners of the cots bedbugs clung, one upon the other, whole generations clinging to the backs of the preceding generations while the next generation was being born above them. In clusters. Like grape clusters. In the shadowed corners on the underside of the cots they moved in clusters gently, swayed by an unseen hand.
The place was filled from morning to night with the sounds of human trouble: men moaning in sleep or cursing by day. No one complained about being in on a bum rap: they were all in on a bum rap. That was understood. But all were bitter at having to do their time here rather than in Statesville. There, it was said, the cells were clean and modern and bright, everyone worked, the food was varied and good, there were movies and teams and a chance to buy cigarettes - if one had the money for a pack - without paying a guard twice the package's price for himself."

Meanwhile Steffi is living with the barber by day, and at night stays at the whorehouse across the street:
"... And turned hopelessly toward the barber's room.
Despite the heat of the staircase she felt a chill going up. And when she came to the pavement-colored carpet that led to no. 24 she Drew The frayed coat more tightly about her, fearing anew that he would be home.
He was out, but the room was littered with drying gobs of snuff spittle; the cracks of the floor were stained with the brown and drying remains of bugs exterminated during the day. She left the door ajar while undressing, using the light from the unshaded bulb in the hall to save the barber electricity. It seemed to her, with the naked light on her and the door ajar and the sounds of men at the bar below, that she had done nothing all her 18 years save to undress beneath the unshaded lights of this public place. An uncovered light and an unclosed door had been her life. She had been in a hundred corners with 100 men -- and now -- so soon -- it had all come suddenly to no more than this, on a night toward the end of summer.
Had it been only a year since the night at Riverview [the amusement park that Bruno took her to the night of the]? It seemed like 20. and yet seemed no time at all, but only the natural ending to the same night. Or to any night that begins with light and music.
In bed she watched the thin column of light between hallway and door. The hotel filled slowly with noises and rumors of noises: the tap-tap-tapping of water from a faucet down the hall, then a sudden curving up-wall sweep of a thousand microscopic legs; a civilization of roaches lived in the walls. A woman on the other side of the flimsy partition began turning something slowly in her throat, like a marble of mucus rolling lopsidedly from side to side -- she felt her own breath clogging at the sound and sat upright trying to cough; then lay back swallowing emptiness."

It almost seems like things can come right again for Steffi and Bruno. I least he's going to try:
" 'Don't talk tough, Steff',' he asked, remembering. 'It ain't nice. You ain't that kind.'
she looked at him in genuine amazement. Then she saw that he meant it, that under his pretense of toughness he was still that soft. He looked ready to cry.
Well, she'd wanted to cry too and couldn't. Let him try to get something out of his system like she had in hers. It couldn't be done.
'What do you think I'm doin' these days, talkin' t' me like that?' she asked. 'keepin' track of the towels?'
He gulped. She looked at him sitting there looking so big and foolish.
'Steff' -- i. I'm sorry.'
He would say no more. It had been a struggle to say that much. She looked away to defend herself from his eyes. They were trying to tell her that there was nothing, now, he would not do for her. And his physical presence, the animal smell of him, the full deep breathing of his chest, all reached toward her to plead for her forgiveness. She reached blindly for the bottle thinking, 'he beat me with the bottle once, I'll need it to beat him tonight. He had his way with me once -- I'll have my way this time.' she mustn't believe in him again, she warned herself. 'For my own sake, I mustn't believe in him.'
she no longer cared for what the barber [the pimp] wanted. She wished only to defend herself. He had kicked her into the gutter once, he'd kick her back if she trusted him for a moment. She drank off four fingers, as if it were the last one she'd ever drink. And he took a small one with her.
'You never quit thinkin' you got ever'body in the world on the ropes, do you?' She lashed out at him. 'You think all you have to do is say "sorry" 'n I come runnin' for another beatin'?'
he took her hand without reply and she could not pull it away. She shoved at his shoulders with the other and they resisted her without effort.
'Steff',' he asked, 'don't push me. I feel bad all the time. I want to make up for what I done...'
'don't feel sorry for me, Bunny. That's the worst yet. You give me every kind of beatin' there is in the books, but don't do it that way too. If you think you got somethin' t' make up for, go t' church 'n do it.'
'I didn't mean sorry that way. I meant make it up for both of us. I meant make it like it used to be ... '
He let her hand drop and she smiled up at him, the dry, wry, bitter little smile she had gotten from her contempt of the barber.
'Like it used to be, Bunny? Ain't it a little late?'
'no.'
she looked at him first with disbelief, then with genuine impatience, half-turning from him. 'What the hell is the use of talking like that? When somethin's done it can't be undone, you can't just fix things by sayin' they didn't happen.' She turned back to him. 'What the hell is the use, Bunny?'
There was no fear of him left in her voice; only the fullness of her desperation at the past was in it.

The characters that Algren created are loathsome, savage, but created with infinite detail and love. To read about them is to almost feel their desperation and the need of living for today, because there may be no tomorrow.

[Jason McCracken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Annoying tale of a pathetic, odious, wannabe gangster and his fuckwit friends who all speak like Cagney in Taxi or Eric Roberts in Runaway Train. I'd imagine it was pretty shocking in its day but 70 years later... not so much.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written - could hear the voices in my head but a dark, disturbing and haunting read.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for book group. I'm glad we picked something out of my comfort zone and that I've read something by Nelson Algren. Can't say that I'll read anything else by this author.

The main characters are young people in West Chicago in around the 1940's. They have no clear way to improve their lot in life and scramble to try to get connections to aldermen, chances to fight in boxing matches and any other leg up. In this group there are no redeemable characters. The women are used and only maintain value if they are protected by these weak men. The men are weak, so they end up considered valueless.

It was a grueling read, but I did get some out of it. It showed the history of local politics--which still runs strong today, and also had some vivid descriptions of police practices. Chicago is notorious for beaten confessions and this gave some insight to the history. Yet, I had little use for his descriptions of prostitution--I just didn't trust that he would have much insight.

[Eric Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliantly written book, should be seen as a modern classic. Mr Algren has a powerful message which has made me question some things in my own life. His narrative is very dark which he expands in time and space. His subjects are on the fringes of society, desperate and trapped by their circumstances and somehow by their own natures. The way I understood it, he infers that all our hopes, dreams and aspirations are delusions which obscures are actual relationship to our lives and ultimately stops us progressing.



(I don't read a great many books but had been meaning to read this one for a long time. I had a version of it that was damaged with lost sections and a different cover. Had it for quite a while that just followed me around various houses then mores parts got lost. I got it together and got another one with the cover you see above.)

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to read this book due to other life distractions, but in the couple hours where I could sit down and read it, I was hooked. What struck me most was the dialogue; Algren brings to life the Chicago accent and dialect beautifully. Since my family all comes from the Southside, and I spent most of my childhood enamored with those neighborhoods, even the time barrier seemed insignificant as I read the descriptions of Oak Street Beach and the 'av'noo.' Good stuff. One of those books I hope to return to a couple of years from now and appreciate even more.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant study of hope in a hopeless neighborhood. It's about teenagers who have no real choices making bad decisions, and then worse decisions, based on pride, fear, guilt and the belief that they'll never escape. It isn't warm and fuzzy. It is real.

[ger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible piece of work. The humanity and the voices of the poor in a world of suffering. The callousness that a life can bring out in us all and yet the hunted still hope.

[Benn · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://bennbell.com/2018/09/22/never...

[Lewis Burik · Rating 5 out of 5]

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, and then it was over. Characters that will stay in your brain for a long time, this is Algren in his Algren-est form.

[Iza Cupial · Rating 5 out of 5]

MILIONY SERDUSZEK
TAKA TAM NICZYM NIE WYBIJAJĄCA SIĘ NAJLEPSZA POWIEŚĆ ŚWIATA !!!!! :D cudeńko, perełka, zero ekscytacji, zeroooo!