Algren's Chicago in the '40's
Nelson Algren is as accomplished a writer of prose as the English language has known.
In Never Come Morning, Algren takes us back to the 1940's to the Polish ghettos of Chicago during WWII and into a dark and seedy landscape where violence, crime, betrayal, as well as loyalty and love are a way of life for the Polish youths seemingly confined therein.
Despite the baseness and brutality of many of his characters, Algren does a fantastic job of really developing them and giving the reader much more insight into these characters than he initially sets us up to expect: their aspirations, their doubts and fears and then on down deeper into their subconscious and into what motivates them to do what they do.
And surprisingly, Never Come Morning is a love story as well between 17 year old Lefty (Bruno) Bicek and young Steffi.
Mostly this novel is a story about the bad boys and girls of the ghetto and how they're just as human as any other characters in literature. Algren's prose are flawless.
A dark book with little humor that takes you right into that seedy, gray world and leaves you just as worried as his characters. Impressive!
