"Bruno Bicek is a prizefighter and small-time hood in Chicago. Boxing is his ticket to escape hard times and gang life, but when Bruno doesn't prevent the brutal gang rape of his girlfriend, Steffi, it tears them apart, their worlds changed forever. Bruno is sent to jail and Steffi to a brothel governed by the brutality of a local crime boss, The Barber. Sinister and dark, The Barber controls Steffi and has no intention of letting her go. Why should he, when he holds all the cards? Bruno and Steffi, who dream of breaking ...
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"Bruno Bicek is a prizefighter and small-time hood in Chicago. Boxing is his ticket to escape hard times and gang life, but when Bruno doesn't prevent the brutal gang rape of his girlfriend, Steffi, it tears them apart, their worlds changed forever. Bruno is sent to jail and Steffi to a brothel governed by the brutality of a local crime boss, The Barber. Sinister and dark, The Barber controls Steffi and has no intention of letting her go. Why should he, when he holds all the cards? Bruno and Steffi, who dream of breaking free, learn this in the end and find that for them there will be no bright morning." This new edition features an introduction by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and an interview with Nelson Algren by H.E.F. Donohue
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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!