Nonconformity by Nelson Algren Page A

Shay, Algren’s other photographer-friend, from whose book,
Nelson Algren’s Chicago
, came our cover images; and to StudsTerkel, who has also remained Algren’s friend all these years. Special thanks to Kurt Vonnegut, who initially challenged the viability of publishing
Nonconformity
at all and then never stopped asking me how work on it was progressing; and to Victor Navasky for helping sort out several points of fact regarding the period we now call the McCarthy era.
    Two writers literally volunteered to work with me, at times when we could not afford to pay them, because of my association with Algren. They are Tom Downs and C. S. O’Brien. O’Brien became my sounding board. It was O’Brien who fought for keeping Algren’s opening section (now the appendix) on the basis of its being the nearest parallel to Fitzgerald’s
The Crack-Up
. And it was O’Brien as well who tracked down Algren’s references to the inimitable Mr. Dooley, a character I had never heard of.
    When I first contacted Algren’s friend, and still his agent, Candida Donadio, in 1984, I had not yet published a book. And yet her agency, then as now, treated me with the respect they accorded anyone passionate about Algren. Over the years Candida, Ruth Sherman who as Algren’s surviving relative is executor of his estate, Eric Ashworth and Neil Olson have been gracious and helpful and always convey to me the palpable sense that Nelson is nearby.
    I owe a debt of gratitude to Elinor Nauen for her inspired copyediting of
Nonconformity;
to Cynthia Cameros and Moyra Davey for sharing the journey of the past year at Seven Stories Press, to Brendamichelle Morris for her helpsecuring permissions for
Nonconformity
, and to my wife, Adriana Scopino, without whose help this work could not have been completed.
    To H. E. F. Donohue, whose
Conversations with Nelson Algren
preceded this book and led the way, I am particularly thankful. Every serious reader of Algren knows
Conversations
. In its pages Algren’s personality lives like an eternal flame. Several passages from
Conversations
appear in
Nonconformity
because they are illuminations of Algren’s work and his spirit. My hope for
Nonconformity
is that it may help readers of Algren continue on that road, in that spirit.
    —D. S.

APPENDIX
    [In October 1949, the actor John Garfield decided he’d like to star as Frankie Machine in a movie version of Algren’s harsh and brilliant new novel
, The Man with the Golden Arm.
Garfield sent his producer, Bob Roberts, to Chicago, where he struck a deal with the writer. In early 1950 Algren and a friend, an addict named Acker, who Algren thought could serve as a technical adviser on the film, traveled on the stylish Super Chief train to Hollywood. Once there, things got off to a bad start. Garfield only swept in and out between games of tennis; Algren kept talking about renegotiating the deal. Within days communication had broken down to the point where Roberts had Algren served with summonses. Algren felt Hollywood was mistreating him, and it only made sense to him to treat Hollywood with equal scorn and loathing in return. In the end a better deal was struck, and Algren returned to Chicago, somewhat mollified, to work on the screenplay, which he completed in three months. For the next two years, as the pervasive persecution of leftists and liberals intensified and as the number of blacklisted actors, writers and directors increased, the film project foundered. Then, in May 1952, under threat of
perjury prosecution for refusing to name Communists by claiming he didn’t know any, Garfield, aged 39, died of a sudden heart attack
.
    Several years later, and after Algren spent another disastrous episode in Hollywood, the film of
The Man with the Golden Arm
was finally made by Otto Preminger, to Algren’s intense and everlasting dissatisfaction. He would come to refer to his Hollywood experience as “my war with the United States as represented by Kim Novak” (who