First Meeting in Chicago
In 1947, Nelson Algren was starting to build a reputation as an author whose tales of Chicago’s downtrodden combined realism and poetic irony. Simone de Beauvoir was already well known within her native France as a novelist and the lover and companion of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. In February of that year, Beauvoir was traveling across post-war America when a friend suggested that she look up Nelson Algren while she was in Chicago. Beauvoir had not heard of Algren, nor had Algren heard of Beauvoir.
Nelson and Simone were both approaching forty at that time and both attractive and passionate about their work. Beauvoir’s fascination with life made her initial meeting with Algren a significant one, finding his small rundown apartment in Chicago’s Polish section to be “refreshing, after the heavy odour of the dollars in the big hotels and the elegant restaurants” that she’d been encountering before. Algren took her on a tour of Skid Row and the burlesque shows, the police station and the local ethnic bars. The couple connected immediately and following her return to Paris in May, Simone was sending Nelson letters addressed “My precious, beloved Chicago man” and signing them “Your wife forever….”
Frog and Crocodile
Unfortunately, while Nelson and Simone continued to correspond and to meet and travel together, the third corner of their love triangle—Jean-Paul Sartre—exasperated Algren. Sartre was a slight, brilliant man whose theories of existentialism had created a new school of consciousness. Sartre had met Beauvoir when she was a student at the Sorbonne, and the pair had always been closely involved. While physical affairs were allowable, the idea of an enduring mental bond was of great importance to their relationship and therefore Algren would never be able to love Beauvoir fully.
Despite this major obstacle, the romance went on and Algren and Beauvoir shared the success of the 1949 publication of Algren’s novel regarding heroin addiction called The Man With The Golden Arm, and of Beauvoir’s feminist statement, The Second Sex—both groundbreaking works. Their pet names for each other were Crocodile for Algren and Frog for Beauvoir, a joking use of the traditional American nickname for the French.
Back and Forth
The presence of Sartre along with Beauvoir’s refusal of Algren’s marriage proposal did not help matters throughout the 1950s. Furthermore, Algren would not learn French and had no desire to live in Paris. Beauvoir was set against moving to the United States and therefore the tug of war intensified.
Beauvoir’s 1954 novel The Mandarins angered Algren on a deeper level. Although Algren was included in the book as the character Lewis Brogan, he felt that his role was minimized by the character based on Jean-Paul Sartre, and that Beauvoir had been too fond of using private moments as literary material. Ironically, while Algren was contemptuous of how he was portrayed in The Mandarins, one of Lewis Brogan’s lines clearly expresses his frustrations: “You can’t love someone who isn’t all yours….” Beauvoir also seemed wary of Algren’s darker moods, and hinted that Sartre might not have been the only reason that kept her from making a commitment.
Reconciliation and Ending
A 1960 reunion led to another fallout, and public literary sniping followed. By 1965, the letters and communications ceased, with Algren being the one to cut the cord. Algren’s career had suffered ups and downs and his work was under-appreciated. He had become disillusioned in many ways, and Simone de Beauvoir only added to the unhappiness.
Until his death in 1981, Algren was recalling the affair bitterly, although upon Beauvoir’s death in 1986, she was buried wearing a silver ring that Algren had given her nearly forty years before.
Sources
- Nelson Algren: A Life on the Wild Side – Bettina Drew (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989)
- A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren – Simone de Beauvoir (The New Press, 1998)
- “Hot and Epistolary,” Review of A Transatlantic Love Affair – NY Times, December 6, 1998
