"The Man With the Golden Arm" to be Screened as part of Nelson Algren Tribute, November 6, 2009

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Novelist Russell Banks Photo credit: Emma Dodge Hanson

• Novelist Don DeLillo

ALBANY, NY (10/21/2009)(readMedia)-- In honor of the birth centennial of Nelson Algren (1909-1981), the New York State Writers Institute will present the film, "The Man with the Golden Arm," followed by live commentary featuring two authors who were Algren's students: Don DeLillo in a rare public appearance, and Russell Banks, recent New York State Author. The event will take place on Friday, November 6, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. [NOTE EARLY START TIME] in Page Hall on the University at Albany's downtown campus. The event is free and open to the public.

DeLillo and Banks, who were friends and students of Algren, will speak about their mentor after the screening of "The Man with the Golden Arm" (United States, 1955, 119 minutes, b/w), a gritty tale of jazz, heroin, hep-cats and low-lifes in post-war Chicago, Algren's famously-named "city on the make."

Based on Algren's bestselling same-titled novel, the film tells the story of Frankie Machine, played by Frank Sinatra, a professional card sharp and struggling drug addict who "gets clean" in prison but finds life on the street much more daunting after his release. Sinatra plays against type and turns in what is often considered to be his best performance on screen. He received a "Best Actor" Academy Award nomination in 1956 for his performance. Directed by Otto Preminger, "The Man With the Golden Arm" also stars Eleanor Parker as Frankie's crippled wife and Kim Novak as his former sweetheart.

A classic of post-war American realism, Algren's 1949 novel received the National Book Award in 1950. At the time of its release, "Time" magazine proclaimed it, "a true novelist's triumph." Critic Malcolm Cowley said, "Algren's defense of the individual in 'The Man with the Golden Arm' brings a new dimension to realism." In advance praise, Ernest Hemingway said, "This is a man writing and you should not read it if you cannot take a punch....Mr. Algren can hit with both hands and move around and he will kill you if you are not awfully careful."

Son of a Jewish mother and Swedish father, Algren grew up in a tough immigrant neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. He began his career as a journalist who chronicled the darker side of American life during the Depression, a subject he continued to explore in short stories and novels. In a 1974 retrospective in the "New Republic," Saul Maloff said, "No writer has been more relentlessly faithful to his scene and cast of characters than Nelson Algren. His scene is the 'wild side,' the 'neon wilderness,' the seamier sprawls of Chicago and its spiritual extensions across this broad land America as Chicago." Algren's works include the short story collection, "The Neon Wilderness" (1947), the prose poem, "Chicago: City on the Make" (1951), and the novels "Never Come Morning" (1942) and "A Walk on the Wild Side" (1956). Two literary prizes have been established in his honor, the Nelson Algren Fiction Contest of the "Chicago Tribune," and the Nelson Algren Fiction Award of the PEN American Center.

Don DeLillo is the author of fourteen novels, including "Falling Man" (2007), "Underworld" (2001) "Libra" (1988) and "White Noise" (1985). He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Jerusalem Prize. In 2006, "Underworld" was named one of the three best novels of the last twenty-five years by the "New York Times Book Review," and in 2000 it won the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the most distinguished work of fiction of the past five years. His forthcoming novel is "Point Omega" (2010) about a young filmmaker who attempts to make a documentary about a presidential war advisor.

Russell Banks, the author of eleven novels and five short story collections, has been called, "...a writer we, as readers and writers, can actually learn from, whose books help and urge us to change" (Fred Pfeil, "Voice Literary Supplement"). A leading voice of working class experience in modern letters, Banks writes fiction that typically deals with issues of family conflict, addiction, economic hardship, and racism. From 2004 to 2007, he served as New York's official state author. His books include the short story collection, "The Angel on the Roof" (2000), and the novels "The Reserve" (2008), "The Darling" (2004), "Cloudsplitter" (1998), and "The Sweet Hereafter" (1991).

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.

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