Somebody In Boots
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''Somebody in Boots'' is writer Nelson Algren's first novel, based on his personal experiences of living in Texas during the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
. The novel was published by Vanguard Press in 1935. The title refers to someone with material well-being and authority, as poor folk and the powerless wore shoes or went barefoot. The bosses and police feared by the poor and downtrodden wear boots, which not only symbolize their power and relative affluence, but can be used as weapons against them.


Plot

Cass McKay is a poor illiterate young man set adrift by the Depression. He is a southerner, a "Final Descendant of the South", one of the "wild and hardy tribe that had given Jackson and Lincoln birth... slaveless yeomen who had never cared for slaves or land...." Cass lives in the Rio Grande Valley in West Texas in a shack "like a casual box on the border; wooden and half-accidental" with his father, his brother (a
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
vet disabled by exposure to poison gas during the war), and sister, subsisting on oatmeal or rice and handouts from the "Relief Station". After a fight between his father and brother, Cass starts drifting, riding the rails from
El Paso, Texas El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...
to
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, with stops in
Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the List of municipalities in Louisiana, third-most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Baton Rouge. The bulk of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, Lo ...
and
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. His journey (and the novel) ends in Chicago during the 1933-34 World`s Fair with the intimation that Cass likely will become a career criminal, already having committed a variety of offenses that have landed him in jail twice.


Autobiographical element

The novel is based on Algren's own wanderings through America during the Great Depression. Born in Detroit Michigan and raised in Chicago, Algren graduated from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...
with a Bachelor of Science in journalism in 1931. He began traveling throughout the country and wound up in Texas in 1933, where he wrote his first short story while working at a gas station. Intending to return home, he stole a typewriter from a local business college and was imprisoned for theft. The material in ''Somebody in Boots'' would later be reworked into Algren's 1956 novel '' A Walk on the Wild Side'', which also featured a wandering Texan. Algren typically denigrated his first novel, which he felt was a primitive work. In a preface to a 1987 paperback re-issue published by Thunder's Mouth Press, Algren wrote, `This is an uneven novel written by an uneven man in the most uneven of American times.`` Algren earlier had said that he was glad the book had gone out of print as he felt ''A Walk on the Wild Side'' was a superior book. ''Somebody in Boots'' sold only 750 copies. A byproduct of the book was his relationship with Amanda Kontowicz, whom he met at a publication party for his book. The couple married in 1937, divorced, remarried and eventually were divorced a second and final time.


Native Son & Richard Wright

'' Native Son'' was the original title Algren gave to the novel, but it was changed in accordance with the wishes of his publisher. Algren and Richard Wright had met at Chicago's John Reed Club circa 1933 and later worked together at the
Federal Writers' Project The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers and to develop a history and overview of the United States, by state, cities and other jurisdictions. It was ...
in Chicago. According to Bettina Drew's 1989 biography ''Nelson Algren'': ''A Life on the Wild Side'', he bequeathed the title "Native Son" to Wright.


References

{{Reflist 1935 American novels Great Depression novels Vanguard Press books