He Was a Famed Novelist of America's Underclass. What Happened? - The New York Times

Asher, an instructor at the City University of New York, scrupulously attempts to separate facts from myths (some created by Algren himself) as he explores how a writer who produced prose-poetry of such a high order could now be largely forgotten. Algren, who a year earlier had won the first National Book Award for his best-selling novel “The Man With the Golden Arm,” also expressed his anger about the deepening class divisions that he felt were undermining hope for a better postwar city and world.