Nonconformity: Writing on Writing

The struggle to write with deep emotion is the subject of this extraordinary book, the previously unpublished credo of one of America's greatest twentieth-century writers.

“You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich,” writes Nelson Algren in his only longer work of nonfiction, adding: “A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.”

Nonconformity is abou...