Chicago, that [broken] city. . .

I finished the Nelson Algren biography, a wonderful book. Algren's life was not presented as one in which he had to share Chicago only with Richard Wright, who left, or Saul Bellow, who mainly stayed but also left. Simone de Beauvoir figures prominently in the narrative, as does Algren's entanglement with federal authorities over his involvement with the Communist movement as a young man. The Guardian and The Chicago Sun-Times present news of the day which would fit the Depression-era 1930s when Algren and Wright first became acquainted in the Windy City.

Also, I stumbled upon a blogger who connected Algren's writing with Bukowski's, no doubt because they both so often chose downtrodden misfits and outcasts as their subjects although with Bukowski, he is much more evidently writing about himself through his alter-ego Henry Chinaski. Algren would be the more richly descriptive writer, but Bukowski seems to be the one who has lasted as far as book sales and cultural memory are concerned.