West of Sunset

"The war dwarfed their problems. What was a broken molar when the Germans were pushing through the Ardennes? [F. Scott Fitzgerald] went to the dentist and Belgium fell. Luxembourg, the Netherlands. He thought of Gerald and Sara's villa, and Sheilah's brother in London. Ernest [Hemingway] was probably there somewhere, filing hot copy.

"They were on their way to the World's Fair in San Francisco when the radio broadcast the evacuation of Dunkirk. It was a victory, saving the British army to fight again, but there was nothing to stop the Germans from taking Paris. [Fitzgerald] was there every day, on the Quai du Louvre with Scottie, as Cary Grant in the Ritz bar. Selfishly, he felt it was his city, his past they were taking from him--the gray, rainy streets and scabby sycamores and hennaed doyennes walking their little dogs in the Jardin des Plantes. He wondered if he would feel the same if the Japanese bombed Los Angeles."

~~ from West of Sunset by Stewart O'Nan

there were so few left

"Nelson [Algren] felt even more isolated among his own generation of radicals because there were so few left. Richard Wright was dead, and no one had heard from Abe Aaron in more than twenty years. Jack Conroy, whom Nelson wasn't speaking to, had retired and returned to Moberly, Missouri, and everyone else had either joined him in obscurity or switched sides. John Dos Passos, one of the most important left-wing writers of the thirties, had become a conservative and a Richard Nixon supporter. John Steinbeck had recently traveled to Vietnam and sent back dispatches praising the war effort. Even Frank Meyer--the Communist Party functionary who scolded Nelson for lacking discipline in 1940--had become a contributor to the National Review and a close friend of William F. Buckley's."

~~ from Colin Asher's Never A Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren

"other writers can't help you with writing"

"Well, I dunno, I do have the feeling that other writers can't help you with writing," [Nelson] Algren said. "I've gone to writers' conferences and writers' sessions and writers' clinics, and the more I see of them, the more I'm sure it's the wrong direction. It isn't the place where you learn to write. I've always felt strongly that a writer shouldn't be engaged with other writers, or with people who make books, or even with people who read them. I think the farther away you get from literary traffic, the closer you are to sources. I mean, a writer doesn't really live. He observes."

~~ from Colin Asher's Never A Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren

Hemingway on Algren

"OK, kid, you beat Dostoyevsky. I'll never fight you in Chicago. Ever."

According to Colin Asher's Never A Lovely So Real, Ernest Hemingway wrote the praise above inside his personal copy of The Man With the Golden Arm.

Nelson Algren

The new Nelson Algren biography is a pleasure. . . lots of Richard Wright in there,  Hem cameo, the 1930s in general. . . I just found it randomly at the  library. Algren's wife just left.  https://t.co/0mA0VLAW56 #20th #Century #American #Literature #Great #Depression

— Alex Kudera (@kudera) June 10, 2019

"flurry of daggers"

Loving these one sentence stories by @LoriSambolBrody, @mcyoung0, and WOW this little flurry of daggers by @kudera, whose work I have never come across before. Thank you @monkeybicycle. https://t.co/pt1RPQZIlU pic.twitter.com/EEukEoaDUH

— tyler gof barton (@goftyler) June 7, 2019

One-Sentence Story

NEW TODAY: One-sentence stories from  @lorisambolbrody @mcyoung0 @oliviakcerrone @josh_levario @thisross & @kudera. Check 'em out!https://t.co/B9QM8sDelu pic.twitter.com/9ixoy9doNb

— monkeybicycle (@monkeybicycle) June 7, 2019

favorite fictions (and a few memoirs)

I've added quite a few titles since this was originally posted.