NORMAN MAILER PRAISES CALLIOPE AUTHORS AND THEIR BOOKS
In his Selected Letters (2014), Norman Mailer offers powerful praise for the Calliope authors James Jones and William Styron and the novels they read from. In Mailer’s list of the best fiction published since 1943, Jones’s From Here to Eternity is ranked #5 and Styron’s Lie Down in Darkness # 6.
Mailer says that Jones’s novel has ” wise, beautiful and subtle things in it.” According to him, Styron’s 1951 book is “magnificent” and”staggering” and he is the “one writer of our generation who has the equipment to be a great writer,” perhaps equal to Faulkner.
FEATURE LENGTH DOCUMENTARY ABOUT NELSON ALGREN: THE END IS NOTHING, THE ROAD IS ALL
Calliope author Nelson Algren is the subject of an in-depth, feature length documentary film made by Bullet Proof Film. Algren, one of America’s greatest but neglected writers, focused on the fears and disenchantments of our consumer culture and the life of the marginalized inhabitants of cities, especially Chicago, as can be heard in his Calliope reading from the National Book Award winning novel, The Man With the Golden Arm.
The film celebrates Algren’s unique literary contribution through rare interviews with Kurt Vonnegut, Studs Turkel and others, archival footage, and the gritty voice of Algren. His love affair with Simone de Beauvoir weaves its way through the film and helps to counteract the damaging impact of surveillance by the FBI and the CIA, blacklisting and the critical neglect of his work .