Never Come Morning is a 1942 novel by Nelson Algren, published by Harper & Brothers in the spring of 1942. The novel -- Algren's second -- was widely praised by critics and also Algren's peers, and eventually sold over a million copies.^[1] Fellow Chicago novelist Richard Wright wrote the introduction, and Jean-Paul Sartre translated the French-language edition.

The novel follows the exploits of Bruno Bicek, a petty criminal and aspiring boxer, challenged by gang life in a hopeless northwest Chicago Polish-immigrant neighborhood.

The story takes place in Chicago's near-Northwest neighborhood -- the Polish 26th ward -- in the late 1930s. Algren himself lived in this neighborhood -- considered one of the most crime-ridden in the city -- for nearly 40 years.^[2] The story's main protagonist, Bruno "Lefty" Bicek, is a young vagabond who dreams of becoming the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. When he fails to prevent the gangrape of his girlfriend, Steffi, their lives are forever altered. Steffi turns to prositution and Bruno is forced into a life of petty crime. The text traces Bruno's reconciliation with his crimes, his choices, his boxing career, and his friends.

Algren struggled to maintain a stable income during the writing of "Never Come Morning." He was said to have stolen milk from people's front porches, and later took a job as a welder's assistant.^[3] Richard Wright reviewed numerous drafts of the novel, and was later asked to write the introduction to the first edition.^[4] Following its publication, Algren enlisted in WWII (source?).

It appeared 2 originally in Southern Review under the title "'Biceps, 111 and was subsequently anthologized in three short-story collections. Algren had originally intended on titling the novel, White Hope.

"In 1948, Algren abridged the novel substantially for a paperback edition, published by Avon.7 Harper republished the novel in its original form in a Harper Colophon edition in 1963,8 an edition offset from the first edition of 1942, without revision and including a new introduction by the author."

"introduction to the Colophon edition of Nev~~ Morni~, he said that the novel "drew upon the lives of half a dozen men with whom the author grew up as well as upon the newspaper reports of the trial of Bernard 'Kni.fey' Sawicki. 1119 Sawicki, a nineteenyear-old parolee who had served a year and a half for attempted robbery, con.fessed to having killed four people in the final weekend of June, 1941."

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Despite receiving enthusiastic support from Richard Wright and critic Malcolm Cowley, the book bombed.^[5][6] The novel's deeply cynical portrayal of the Polish community ignited such controversy that the Polish Roman Catholic Union persuaded the mayor of Chicago, NAME, to have the book banned from Chicago's Public Library. Algren would address this issue in the Preface(?) to the reprint, where he would write that "QUOTE". It would take 20 years to reverse the ban.^[7][8]

The Introduction to the (reprint) is written by Kurt Vonnegut, who describes the book as "QUOTE." Richard Wright cited the novel's "crude but forceful poetry," and Ernest Hemingway called it "The best book to come out of Chicago."^[9] Jean-Paul Sartre had tremendous respect for the novel and completed a French translation, published in ???.^[10]

A theatrical adaptation of the novel won the 1995 Joseph Jefferson Citation Award for best production.^[11]