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Bettina Drew (essay date 1995)

SOURCE: An introduction to The Texas Stories of Nelson Algren, University of Texas Press, 1995, pp. ix-xviii.

[In the following introduction to The Texas Stories of Nelson Algren, Drew provides an overview of the time Algren spent in Texas during the 1930s and discusses how the author incorporated his experiences in the Southwest into his short stories.]

This slender volume [The Texas Stories of Nelson Algren] preserves a unique and devastating view of the Lone Star State during the Depression, a melancholy and explosive world of hoboes, migrant workers, ranch hands, penniless Mexicans, carnival roustabouts, and the dangerous and helpless inhabitants of county jails. These firsthand impressions of impoverished lives formed the philosophical and moral foundation for all of Nelson Algren's later work. Though dubbed "the poet of the Chicago slums" and long known as a naturalistic urban...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. John Woodburn (review date 1947)
   2. Catherine Meredith Brown (review date 1947)
   3. George Bluestone (essay date 1957)
   4. Maxwell Geismar (essay date 1958)
   5. Haskel Frankel (review date 1963)
   6. R. W. Lid (essay date 1966)
   7. Daniel R. Silkowski (essay date 1971)
   8. James R. Frakes (review date 1973)
   9. Saul Maloff (review date 1974)
   10. Commonweal (review date 1947)
   11. R. W. Lid (essay date 1975)
   12. Martha Heasley Cox and Wayne Chatterton (essay date 1975)
   13. Tom Carson (essay date 1986)
   14. Kirkus Reviews (review date 1995)
   15. Albert E. Wilhelm (review date 1995)
   16. Bettina Drew (essay date 1995)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright