PROFILPELAJAR.COM

The Neon Wilderness
	First edition
Author	Nelson Algren
Language	English
Genre	Short stories: tragi-comedy, satire
Publisher	Doubleday & Co.
Publication date	1947
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	286 (1st ed.)
OCLC	1117160
Dewey Decimal	813.52

The Neon Wilderness (1947) is the first short-story collection by American writer Nelson Algren. Two of its stories^[1] had received an O. Henry Award. Algren received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters^[2] the same year.

Overview

The book collects 24 stories: 8 previously published (from 1933 to 1947)^[3]^[4] and 16 new. Most of them are set in then-contemporary Chicago (1930s and 1940s), in the so-called "Polish-American ghetto". They revolve around the lower classes: workers and unemployed, drunkards and gamblers, prostitutes and hustlers, small-businessmen and policemen. Unlike Dickens or Zola, their general tone is tragi-comedy or sympathetic satire.

Two stories had received an O. Henry Award (and been reprinted in the related annual volume): Algren's second-published story "The Brothers' House"^[1] (1935 award) and "A Bottle of Milk for Mother (Biceps)"^[1] (1941 award). Two had been selected for The Best American Short Stories: "A Bottle of Milk for Mother"^[4] (as "Biceps",^[5] 1942 volume) and "How the Devil Came Down Division Street"^[4] (1945 volume). The year the collection was released, Algren received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a grant from Chicago's Newberry Library.^[2]

"The Captain Has Bad Dreams"
"How the Devil Came Down Division Street" (1944, Harper's Bazaar)^[6]
"Is Your Name Joe?"
"Depend on Aunt Elly"
"Stickman's Laughter" (1942, The Southern Review)^[4]
"A Bottle of Milk for Mother" (1941, as "Biceps",^[5] The Southern Review)^[4]
"He Couldn't Boogie-Woogie Worth a Damn"
"A Lot You Got to Holler"
"Poor Man's Pennies"
"The Face on the Barroom Floor" (1947,^{[n. 1]} The American Mercury)^[4]
"The Brothers' House" (1934, Story magazine)^[4]
"Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone"
"He Swung and He Missed" (1942, The American Mercury)^[4]
"El Presidente de Méjico"
"Kingdom City to Cairo"
"That's the Way It's Always Been"
"The Children" (1943, The American Mercury)^[4]
"Million-Dollar Brainstorm"
"Pero Vencermos"
"No Man's Laughter"
"Katz"
"Design for Departure"
"The Heroes"
"So Help Me" (1933, Story magazine)^[4]

Notes

^ That first appearance was as "The Face on the Barroom Floor, or Too Much Salt on the Pretzels". (See Contento reference.)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Random House, "O. Henry Award Winners 1919–1999", Bold Type (via Archive.org)
^ ^a ^b Google Books, The Neon Wilderness: "Algren received a 1947 Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a grant from Chicago's Newberry Library."
^ Brooke Horvath, Understanding Nelson Algren, University of South Carolina Press, 2005, ISBN 978-1-57003-574-6, p. 167.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Chicago Public Library, "The Nelson Algren Collection" (1933–1999), Special Collections, 2005 — Partial bibliography with editions and printings, first appearances and reprintings, reviews and notices, etc.
^ ^a ^b WorldCat, "A bottle of milk for mother" (1941): "From the Southern Review under the title of 'Biceps'. In O. Henry memorial award prize stories of 1941."
^ William G. Contento, "Stories: Algren, Nelson", in "Miscellaneous Anthologies Index" ("updated March 17, 2015"), Homeville: Bibliographic Resources (at Phil Stephensen-Payne's Galactic Central)