Never Come Morning

Chicago pours forth from Stefan Rudnicki--not the satirical "da Bears" version but not a variety that is overly familiar, either. Algren's masterpiece, which deserves a much higher readership, takes place in the brutal, dead-end, largely Polish enclaves of Wicker Park, Chicago, circa 1942. Bruno "Lefty" Bicek is a twenty-year gifted boxer who foolishly believes the ring offers him passage to his American Dream. But his world is circumscribed by organized crime, Chicago-style ward politics, and violence that is as casual as it is unpredictable. Dreams do not come true in such places. Seeming to arise from these gritty streets, Rudnicki's narration conveys a despair and a terror that do not quickly dissipate. M.O. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine


Nelson Algren, author of MAN WITH A GOLDEN ARM and A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE, today languishes in undeserved obscurity. He wrote of Chicago's mean streets in an uncompromisingly sweaty, sinewy style that spoke grittily of his milieu. With his crisp, precise elocution, narrator Barrett Whitener is a bit too civilized for that style, yet in this tale of a would-be boxer and his thwarted dreams he still manages to convey the dark shadows and gray skies that loom over Depression-era alleyways. His characters are as sharp as his diction, particularly young Lefty, our hero, whose na•veté and moral ambivalence render him both predator and prey in what Mike Royko called the "where's mine?" city. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine