Editing Nelson Algren (section)

===Fame===
[[File:Algren house Miller.jpg|thumb|Dunes cottage where Algren and de Beauvoir summered in [[Miller Beach]], Indiana.]]

Algren's first short-story collection, ''[[The Neon Wilderness]]'' (1947), collected 24 stories from 1933 to 1947. The same year, Algren received an award from the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]] and a grant from Chicago's [[Newberry Library]].<ref>[[Google Books]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=bEBaAAAAMAAJ ''The Neon Wilderness'']: "Algren received a 1947 Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a grant from Chicago's Newberry Library."</ref>

It was in that same year that Algren had an affair with [[Simone de Beauvoir]]. Mary Guggenheim, who had been Algren's lover, recommended De Beauvoir visit Algren in Chicago. The couple would summer together in Algren's cottage in the lake front community of [[Miller Beach]], Indiana, and also travel to [[Latin America]] together in 1949. In her novel ''[[The Mandarins]]'' (1954), Beauvoir wrote of Algren (who is 'Lewis Brogan' in the book):

<blockquote>At first I found it amusing meeting in the flesh that classic American species: self-made leftist writer. Now, I began taking an interest in Brogan. Through his stories, you got the feeling that he claimed no rights to life and that nevertheless he had always had a passionate desire to live. I liked that mixture of modesty and eagerness.</blockquote>

Algren and Beauvoir eventually became disenchanted with each other, and a bitter Algren wrote of Beauvoir and Sartre in a ''[[Playboy]]'' magazine article about a trip he took to [[North Africa]] with Beauvoir, that she and Sartre were bigger users of others than a prostitute and her pimp in their way.<ref>{{cite book|last =Taylor|first = Brian F.|date =2015|title= Gnomonic Verses|publisher = Universal Octopus| page= 123|isbn = 9780957190122}}</ref>

Algren's next novel, ''[[The Man with the Golden Arm (novel)|The Man with the Golden Arm]]'' (1949), would become his best known work. It won the [[National Book Award for Fiction]] in 1950.<ref name=nba1950>
[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1950 "National Book Awards – 1950"]. [[National Book Foundation]]. Retrieved March 31, 2012. <br/>(With essays by Rachel Kushne and Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)</ref> The protagonist of the book, Frankie Machine, is an aspiring drummer who is a dealer in illicit card games. Frankie is trapped in [[demimonde]] Chicago, having picked up a [[morphine]] habit during his brief military service during [[World War II]]. He is married to a woman whom he mistakenly believes became crippled in a car accident he caused.

Algren's next book, ''[[Chicago: City on the Make]]'' (1951), was a scathing essay that outraged the city's boosters but portrayed the back alleys of the city, its dispossessed, its corrupt politicians and its swindlers. Algren also declared his love of the City as a "lovely so real".

''The Man With the Golden Arm'' was adapted as a [[The Man With the Golden Arm|1955 movie]] of the same name, starring [[Frank Sinatra]] and directed and produced by [[Otto Preminger]]. Algren soon withdrew from direct involvement. It was a commercial success but Algren loathed the film.<ref name="O'Hagan" /> He sued Preminger seeking an injunction to stop him from claiming ownership of the property as "An Otto Preminger film", but he soon withdrew his suit for financial reasons.<ref name="Fujiwara">{{cite book|last=Fujiwara|first=Chris|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z-2-CQAAQBAJ&pg=PA194|title=The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger|location=New York City|publisher=Faber & Faber|year=2008|page=194|isbn=9781466894235}}</ref>

In the fall of 1955, Algren was interviewed for ''[[The Paris Review]]'' by rising author [[Terry Southern]]. Algren and Southern became friends through this meeting and remained in touch for many years. Algren became one of Southern's most enthusiastic early supporters and, when he taught creative writing in later years, he often used Southern as an example of a great short story writer.<ref>Hill, Lee - ''A Grand Guy: The Life and Art of Terry Southern'' (Bloomsbury, 2001), pp.63-64</ref>

Algren had another commercial success with the novel ''[[A Walk on the Wild Side]]'' (1956). He reworked some of the material from his first novel, ''Somebody in Boots'', as well as picking up elements from several published short stories, such as his 1947 "The Face on the Barroom Floor".{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} The novel was about a wandering Texan adrift during the early years of the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]]. He said it was superior to the earlier book. It was adapted as the [[Walk on the Wild Side (film)|1962 movie]] of the same name. Some critics thought the film [[bowdlerized]] the book, and it was not commercially successful.