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Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren
US $5.61
ApproximatelyAU $8.72
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A book with obvious wear. May have some damage to the cover but integrity still intact. The binding may be slightly damaged but integrity is still intact. Possible writing in margins, possible underlining and highlighting of text, but no missing pages or anything that would compromise the legibility or understanding of the text. See the seller’s listing for full details and description of any imperfections.
- Buy It NowNever a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren
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Located in: Burlington, New Jersey, United States
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eBay item number:335736176546
Item specifics
- Condition
- Release Year
- 2019
- ISBN
- 9780393244519
About this product
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Norton & Company, Incorporated, w. w.
ISBN-10
0393244512
ISBN-13
9780393244519
eBay Product ID (ePID)
28038310265
Product Key Features
Book Title
Never a Lovely So Real : the Life and Work of Nelson Algren
Number of Pages
512 Pages
Language
English
Topic
Literary
Publication Year
2019
Illustrator
Yes
Genre
Biography & Autobiography
Format
Hardcover
Dimensions
Item Height
1.4 in
Item Weight
32.7 Oz
Item Length
9.5 in
Item Width
6.5 in
Additional Product Features
Intended Audience
Trade
LCCN
2018-049775
Dewey Edition
23
Reviews
Colin Asher has written a deeply researched, moving account of a great writer's life. Nelson Algren was a titanic talent, a mid-20th century comet of a novelist who lit up the literary landscape for two decades, then mysteriously darkened and all but disappeared. Asher's biography goes a long ways towards explaining why., [D]evotional and beautifully written ... its sentences captur[es] the very same mix of lyricism and street, hard truths and sentimentality that made Algren himself so special., [W]onderfully readable. ... In Asher, [Algren] gets the biographer any writer dreams of: thorough, smart, [and] literate., Nelson Algren is one of those fascinating, almost mythical figures in twentieth-century arts and letters, and Colin Asher's fine biography brings him to life with breathless intensity. It also provides the necessary corrective to Algren's hitherto misrepresented and misunderstood life and work and restores him to the rightful position he should occupy in American literature., [B]rilliant....Not every biographer of a writer knows how to locate the source of his subject's creative impulses, but Asher does....[A] vivid, vastly insightful book., [V]igorous, poetic .... [A] generous, stylish portrait of an impulsive, directionless outsider who nonetheless established a place among the lions of mid-20th century American literature., A magnificently thorough and sensitive study of one of the great authors in twentieth century America., ""[L]evelheaded and illuminating. ... Never a Lovely So Real has heft and heart, and it displays the sort of respect and loyalty to its subject that the novelist paid to the struggling, real-life people he put into his books.", Never a Lovely So Real is the third biography of the great Nelson Algren, and it's easily the best, an extraordinary book in its own right. Asher is a wonderful storyteller, and his book reads like a deeply researched novel about the strange and wayward life of a determined outsider. More than any first-rate American novelist of the postwar era, Algren has fallen through the cracks because of certain misconceptions about his work and person that Asher strives to correct. I applaud his heroic project, in a callous phase of our national history, to restore the reputation of a writer who evoked the singular dignity of the lowliest human lives., Absorbing. ... [Asher] scrupulously attempts to separate facts from myths ... as he explores how a writer who produced prose-poetry of such a high order could now be largely forgotten., Absorbing....[Asher] scrupulously attempts to separate facts from myths...as he explores how a writer who produced prose-poetry of such a high order could now be largely forgotten., Easily the best biography of the great Nelson Algren, and an extraordinary book in its own right, Never a Lovely So Real reads like a novel about the strange and wayward life of a determined outsider. More than any first-rate American novelist of the postwar era, Algren has fallen through the cracks. Colin Asher is a wonderful storyteller, and I applaud his heroic project, in a callous phase of our national history, to restore the reputation of a writer who evoked the singular dignity of the lowliest human lives., A magnificently thorough and sensitive study of one of the great authors in twentieth-century America. Colin Asher's engrossing biography explores why Algren spoke for those who could not speak for themselves and demonstrates why we desperately need a voice like his today., Nelson Algren is a fascinating, almost-mythical figure ... Colin Asher's fine biography brings him to life with breathless intensity [and] provides the necessary corrective to Algren's hitherto misrepresented and misunderstood life and work., [A] well-written and scrupulously researched biography. ... One can only hope that efforts of remembrance like Never a Lovely So Real will help to return [Algren's] star to the literary firmament where it belongs., Colin Asher has written a deeply researched, moving account of a great writer's life. Nelson Algren was a titanic talent, a mid-twentieth-century comet of a novelist who lit up the literary landscape for two decades, then mysteriously darkened and all but disappeared. Asher's biography goes a long ways towards explaining why., [V]igorous, poetic...[A] generous, stylish portrait of an impulsive, directionless outsider who nonetheless established a place among the lions of mid-twentieth-century American literature., As he presents Algren as a seminal American writer focused on injustice in this captivating, redefining, and sharply relevant biography, Asher also reveals how the insidious abuse of power by the federal government destroys lives., [B]rilliant. ... Not every biographer of a writer knows how to locate the source of his subject's creative impulses, but Asher does. ... [A] vivid, vastly insightful book., An extraordinary book. Asher is a first-rate story-teller, and his book reads like a deeply researched novel about the strange and wayward life of a determined outsider.
Dewey Decimal
813/.52 B
Synopsis
This definitive biography reclaims Nelson Algren as a towering literary figure and finally unravels the enigma of his disappearance from American letters. For a time, Nelson Algren was America's most famous author, lauded by the likes of Richard Wright and Ernest Hemingway. Millions bought his books. Algren's third novel, The Man with the Golden Arm , won the first National Book Award, and Frank Sinatra starred in the movie. But despite Algren's talent, he abandoned fiction and fell into obscurity. The cause of his decline was never clear. Some said he drank his talent away; others cited writer's block. The truth, hidden in the pages of his books, is far more complicated and tragic. Now, almost forty years after Algren's death, Colin Asher finally captures the full, novelistic story of his life in a magisterial biography set against mid-twentieth-century American politics and culture. Drawing from interviews, archival correspondence, and the most complete version of Algren's 886-page FBI file ever released, Colin Asher portrays Algren as a dramatic iconoclast. A member of the Communist Party in the 1930s, Algren used his writing to humanize Chicago's underclass, while excoriating the conservative radicalism of the McCarthy era. Asher traces Algren's development as a thinker, his close friendship and falling out with Richard Wright, and his famous affair with Simone de Beauvoir. Most intriguingly, Asher uncovers the true cause of Algren's artistic exile: a reckless creative decision that led to increased FBI scrutiny and may have caused a mental breakdown. In his second act, Algren was a vexing figure who hid behind a cynical facade. He called himself a "journalist" and a "loser," though many still considered him one of the greatest living American authors. An inspiration to writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Martha Gellhorn, Jimmy Breslin, Betty Friedan, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Russell Banks, and Thomas Pynchon, Algren nevertheless struggled to achieve recognition, and died just as his career was on the verge of experiencing a renaissance. Never a Lovely So Real offers an exquisitely detailed, engrossing portrait of a master who, as esteemed literary critic Maxwell Geismar wrote, was capable of suggesting "the whole contour of a human life in a few terse pages.", For a time, Nelson Algren was America's most famous author, lauded by the likes of Richard Wright and Ernest Hemingway. Millions bought his books. Algren's third novel, The Man with the Golden Arm , won the first National Book Award, and Frank Sinatra starred in the movie. But despite Algren's talent, he abandoned fiction and fell into obscurity. The cause of his decline was never clear. Some said he drank his talent away; others cited writer's block. The truth, hidden in the pages of his books, is far more complicated and tragic. Now, almost forty years after Algren's death, Colin Asher finally captures the full, novelistic story of his life in a magisterial biography set against mid-twentieth-century American politics and culture. Drawing from interviews, archival correspondence, and the most complete version of Algren's 886-page FBI file ever released, Colin Asher portrays Algren as a dramatic iconoclast. A member of the Communist Party in the 1930s, Algren used his writing to humanize Chicago's underclass, while excoriating the conservative radicalism of the McCarthy era. Asher traces Algren's development as a thinker, his close friendship and falling out with Richard Wright, and his famous affair with Simone de Beauvoir. Most intriguingly, Asher uncovers the true cause of Algren's artistic exile: a reckless creative decision that led to increased FBI scrutiny and may have caused a mental breakdown. In his second act, Algren was a vexing figure who hid behind a cynical facade. He called himself a "journalist" and a "loser," though many still considered him one of the greatest living American authors. An inspiration to writers such as Hunter S. Thompson, Martha Gellhorn, Jimmy Breslin, Betty Friedan, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Russell Banks, and Thomas Pynchon, Algren nevertheless struggled to achieve recognition, and died just as his career was on the verge of experiencing a renaissance. Never a Lovely So Real offers an exquisitely detailed, engrossing portrait of a master who, as esteemed literary critic Maxwell Geismar wrote, was capable of suggesting "the whole contour of a human life in a few terse pages.", This definitive biography reclaims Nelson Algren as a towering literary figure and finally unravels the enigma of his disappearance from American letters.
LC Classification Number
PS3501.L4625Z55 2019
Item description from the seller
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Seller feedback (13,756)
- l***m (236)- Feedback left by buyer.Past 6 monthsVerified purchaseReceived this item in just a few days and I'm in Texas. Great packaging and book was in excellent condition good appearance. This book was as described, good quality and book was worth the price. Thank you seller. I highly recommend this seller. If you see something you like order now yall.Emergency War Surgery: The Survivalist's Medical Desk Reference (#335917802239)
- h***i (1341)- Feedback left by buyer.Past monthVerified purchaseI sent the seller a friendly request after buying, asking them to please not ship the book in a thin plastic mailer. My message was sent back to me, the seller never saw it or replied. Ebay said that the seller blocks messages. The Book was in fact shipped in a thin plastic mailer. It arrived okay, but sometimes they don't. Bought another book from a different seller at the same time who replied to my message and who ships his books in boxes. Guess who I'll be a repeat buyer with?
- e***1 (154)- Feedback left by buyer.Past 6 monthsVerified purchasePurchase copy of book A Bold Return to Giving...One Farm, Six Generations...late Sunday evening. It arrived Wednesday!!! Super-fast processing by seller. Book appears better than listing described and came in like-new condition. Good value. A+ seller. Haven't read book yet but watched interview with author and enjoyed what I heard so decided to buy this book.
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Seller feedback (13,756)
- l***m (236)- Feedback left by buyer.Past 6 monthsVerified purchaseReceived this item in just a few days and I'm in Texas. Great packaging and book was in excellent condition good appearance. This book was as described, good quality and book was worth the price. Thank you seller. I highly recommend this seller. If you see something you like order now yall.Emergency War Surgery: The Survivalist's Medical Desk Reference (#335917802239)
- h***i (1341)- Feedback left by buyer.Past monthVerified purchaseI sent the seller a friendly request after buying, asking them to please not ship the book in a thin plastic mailer. My message was sent back to me, the seller never saw it or replied. Ebay said that the seller blocks messages. The Book was in fact shipped in a thin plastic mailer. It arrived okay, but sometimes they don't. Bought another book from a different seller at the same time who replied to my message and who ships his books in boxes. Guess who I'll be a repeat buyer with?
- e***1 (154)- Feedback left by buyer.Past 6 monthsVerified purchasePurchase copy of book A Bold Return to Giving...One Farm, Six Generations...late Sunday evening. It arrived Wednesday!!! Super-fast processing by seller. Book appears better than listing described and came in like-new condition. Good value. A+ seller. Haven't read book yet but watched interview with author and enjoyed what I heard so decided to buy this book.