Read Online Algren by Mary Wisniewski - Free Book Online

such a young writer: an unreliable narrator speaking in dialect about robbery and murder and making it all seem inevitable.
    â€œSo Help Me” was picked up by
Story
magazine in August 1933, for twenty-five dollars. It was a prestigious magazine at the time anda big score for a newcomer. The same issue had pieces by William Faulkner and Meridel Le Sueur. The publication of “So Help Me” was followed later that year by “Forgive Them, Lord,” in
A Year
magazine, about a black man named Christopher who witnesses a murder of a black father and daughter. The girl had been impregnated by a white man, whose family wanted to cover it up. The witness decides to keep quiet about it, knowing there would be little chance of justice. Like Homer, he tries to justify his fear to himself—maybe the girl deserved it somehow, maybe it was for her own good—and he resolves to be a good Christian and forgive the white killers. But a woman learns what he knows and betrays him for seemingly no reason at all, and he, too, faces being murdered at the end of the story. His practical, pious, slavish decision not to be a hero turns out to be worthless, and he loses both his soul and his life. These early stories contain what became frequent Algren themes: casual, senseless cruelty and the inability of the oppressed to stick together against a common enemy.
    Both of these early stories were published under Nelson’s new pen name—he had dropped “Abraham” for a simplified spelling of his middle name, “Algren,” which offered the pleasing phonetic symmetry of two syllables and six letters in both first and last name. It took back the pre-Jewish name of his eccentric paternal grandfather and separated him from his prosy parents. “He didn’t want to operate as a Jew,” said his friend Dave Peltz. “Nobody knew that he was Jewish.”
    â€œSo Help Me” attracted the interest of Vanguard Press, which asked in a form letter if the author was working on a novel. Vanguard was known for radical, politically oriented books and novels of social realism—it had published not only
Young Lonigan
but also
Female
by Donald Clarke, declared obscene by a Brooklyn court. Nelson did not wait for anything more formal. Hitchhiking by this time was as natural for him as getting into a car, so he hit theroad east, this time carrying pocket notebooks to record impressions. He took a detour to see Niagara Falls with a couple of young men who were giving him a ride, and made notes about the falls’ rainbow-colored spray, the
Maid of the Mist
boat that took tourists near the waters, and the rats among the rocks. He went for the first time to New York City in September of 1933.
    Nelson found his way to Vanguard and met publisher James Henle in his well-furnished office on Fifth Avenue. Henle was surprised to see the tall, lean, intense young man—he did not even know a letter had been mailed. “Are you planning a novel?” Henle asked politely.
    Nelson did not know anything about writing a novel, but this was his chance, and he had to think fast. He looked around the office, resplendent with books, plotting out something to say. After all he had seen and done, how hard could it be? He told Henle he would set a book in the Southwest, so he needed to go back there to do research.
    â€œHow much would you need?” Henle asked.
    â€œA hundred dollars,” Nelson replied—which seemed like a lot of money. After what he’d seen outside—the shining new Empire State and Chrysler buildings, Pennsylvania Station with its columns like the glory days of Rome—he figured New York could spare it. He giddily agreed he would write a novel tentatively titled
The Gods Gather
in six months’ time—by March 15, 1934—and got $10 in advance. Henle agreed to advance an additional $90 over the next few months, plus another $100 on completion. Nelson gave Vanguard his