Nonconformity Writing on Writing

A book of political and literary criticism written by Algren in the early 1950s but not published until 1996. Starting with an examination of the...more

A book of political and literary criticism written by Algren in the early 1950s but not published until 1996. Starting with an examination of the personal and professional decline of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Algren generalizes about the artistic temperament and the creation of literary reputations. He also links the writer's public role to the politics of his era, maintaining that Americans, trapped "between the H bomb and the A," need to have vocal critics of the establishment to consider and speak for the interests of the powerless. Cynical yet engaged, Algren provides his distinctive analysis and portrait of American society in the first years of the Cold War.   less