It's Nelson Algren's Birthday

By nights when the yellow salamanders of the EL bend all one way and the cold rain runs with the red-lit rain.
By the way the city's million wires are burdened only by lightest snow;
When chairs are stacked and glasses are turned and arc-lamps all are dimmed.
By days when the wind bangs alley gates ajar and the sun goes by on the wind.
By nights when the moon is an only child above the measured thunder of the cars, you may know Chicago's heart at last."
Nelson Algren, "Chicago: City on the Make"

*****

There is a certain corporate chain bookstore at the corner of State and Washington in Chicago. I was in there last summer to find "The Man With the Golden Arm," by Nelson Algren. It's a big store—big enough to have a good selection of Chicago writers if it wanted to—and it had no Algren at all. In fact, I had to spell "Algren" for the clerk so he could check the computer and verify that they didn’t have any.

This wasn't just maddening because I wanted the book. What made it worse was the history.  That same neighborhood wasn’t always clean enough and nice enough to attract big corporate stores. In fact, for years that corner was part of a strip of seedy theatres, pawnshops and bars. It was exactly the kind of place Algren felt most at home and a corner that the man himself quite probably walked only 30 years before. Yet by 2007, one of the biggest bookstores in Chicago wasn't carrying one of Chicago's most important writers. Hell, they didn't even know how to spell his name.

It was just too much. Now I HAD to buy the book.

I'm so glad I did, because I loved it. I read a lot of books last year, but this was by far the best. "Peyton Place" was a fun read but "Golden Arm" stayed with me like an old dream. It was just so much more than I expected.

Here, let me show you. This paragraph—almost entirely slang—is about guy trying to win a dice game. And yet, it sings.

"He had the touch, and a golden arm. "Hold me up, Arm," he would plead, trying for a fifth pass with the first four still riding, kiss his rosary once for help with the faders sweating it out and zing!--there it was, Little Joe or Phoebe, Big Dick or Eighter from Decatur, double trey the hard way and dice be nice--when you got a hunch bet a bunch--bet a dollar and then holler--make me five to keep me alive--it don't mean a thing if it don't cross that string--tell 'em where you got it and how easy it was."

Happy Birthday, Mr. A.