Author Nelson Algren would have been 99 today, and next year Chicago and maybe a few other places on the map will surely celebrate the centennial of his birth and life and work--hopefully in an offbeat and left-of-center manner, to match Algren's personality. This picture was taken by photographer Art Shay in about 1949 and shows Algren looking over a manuscript in his Wicker Park apartment. Shay was a good friend of Algren's and followed him around taking pictures during this time and for several years after, getting a glimpse of Chicago through Nelson's wise and weary eyes. The photos are now compiled into a book called Chicago's Nelson Algren (Seven Stories Press), and you can also see more of them through The Steven Daiter Gallery's on-line exhibit, all fascinating visuals to accompany this great writer's often poignant, often funny, often tragic words.
"An old wino dragging a pair of mottled suspenders to the floor wandered in from somewhere and asked wonderingly: 'You fellows remember me?' When none remembered he repeated the question to himself, with moving lips, as though he himself had nearly forgotten. Yet with each pulse beat his blood demanded to know, once and for all before it went cold for keeps, who remembered him and his mottled suspenders...."
Nelson Algren, The Man With The Golden Arm
