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Read the STOP SMILING of Entrapment:

In our monthly column, we ask two reviewers to offer their perspective on the same book. The latest entry focuses on Nelson Algren's Entrapment and Other Writings.


Reviewer Beth Capper writes:

Chicago is always at the center of things in Algren's work. It is a city he both loved and despised. Algren's capacity for explaining its appeals and pitfalls is perhaps why he is so adored by its residents, and why his word on Chicago has become the final one. His vision of the city is at once romantic and foreboding: its unforgiving winters and its back streets lit by "indifferent stars."

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And from Gretchen Kalwinski:

These short works are a solid survey of Algren’s still-vibrant writing, but contemporary readers may stumble on the Entrapment passages where he uses a noir-ish, “daddy-o� jazz-language to render period-specific street poetry to an almost-goofy affect.