The Neon Wilderness


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

Overview

The book collects 24 stories: 8 previously published and 16 new. Most of them are set in then-contemporary Chicago, 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 : Algren's second-published story "The Brothers' House" and "A Bottle of Milk for Mother ". Two had been selected for The Best American Short Stories: "A Bottle of Milk for Mother" and "How the Devil Came Down Division Street". 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.

Contents

The collection contains the following 24 stories.
  1. "The Captain Has Bad Dreams"
  2. "How the Devil Came Down Division Street"
  3. "Is Your Name Joe?"
  4. "Depend on Aunt Elly"
  5. "Stickman's Laughter"
  6. "A Bottle of Milk for Mother"
  7. "He Couldn't Boogie-Woogie Worth a Damn"
  8. "A Lot You Got to Holler"
  9. "Poor Man's Pennies"
  10. "The Face on the Barroom Floor"
  11. "The Brothers' House"
  12. "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone"
  13. "He Swung and He Missed"
  14. "El Presidente de Méjico"
  15. "Kingdom City to Cairo"
  16. "That's the Way It's Always Been"
  17. "The Children"
  18. "Million-Dollar Brainstorm"
  19. "Pero Vencermos"
  20. "No Man's Laughter"
  21. "Katz"
  22. "Design for Departure"
  23. "The Heroes"
  24. "So Help Me"