SOURCE: "The Contour of Human Life," in Nelson Algren, Twayne Publishers, 1975, pp. 39-58.

In the essay below, Cox and Chatterton provide an overview of Algren's short stories, stating that critical focus on his novels has minimized "Algren's considerable achievement in the [short story genre."]

Critics such as Chester Eisinger, George Bluestone, Maxwell Geismar, and Leslie Fiedler, who have assessed Algren's fiction comprehensively, have approached the major works chronologically, but they have usually ignored his early stories and have discussed some others only as they have appeared between the publications of the novels. Such treatment has tended to minimize Algren's considerable achievement in the genre: he has written more than fifty substantial short stories, including his first work, during his career as novelist, poet, reviewer, and travel-book writer.

Algren considered the short story important. In 1945, when he decided to settle in Chicago and to become "serious about writing," he...