Status Updates From The Texas Stories of Nelson...

“Driven out by Cromwell, the myth {of the cavalier} found sanctuary in the American South. And flowered its finest amid mill waste. And in those small grubby towns where Main Street was rutted by wagon wheels, and the last gas lamp on the outskirts looked tired all night long.”

Nelson Algren is a brilliant writer.

I’ve read Nelson Algren for over 40 years.

This collection of stories I’d never read before now remind me why I keep returning to his writing.

More depraved bastards per story than your typical anthology of tales of Depression era Texas.

Just finished “Thundermug”- an unpleasant account of a three week stay in a filthy & poorly heated county jail and of the kangaroo court of law in a blue steel and stone cage somewhere in Texas.

You won’t turn the page at the close of each story humming your favorite summertime pop tune but the writing’s superb.

Grim, dark literary fiction focusing on everyday life for the indigents of remote areas of Texas during the 1920s in the midst of the Great Depression. Apparently partially autobiographical.

Mostly road stories feature hoboes as main characters or unreliable narrators.

Five stories in - so far, remarkable stuff.

Just started tonight. A good start, too.

Just started tonight