The famous quote -

"Never play cards with a man called Doc.  Never eat at a place called Mom's.  Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own."   

-         Nelson Algren (1909-1981)

You will find an amusing bio of Algren here.  It opens thus –

American author, who won the first National Book Award for fiction in 1950 for THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, which was later made into a film starring Frank Sinatra.  Chicago inspired Algren, like the writer James T. Farrell, more than any other city.  He depicted its drunks, pimps, prostitutes, freaks, drug addicts, prize-fighters, corrupt politicians, and hoodlums - the whole underside of urban life.  Algren published four novels and over fifty short stories, poetry, criticism, and travel books.  His trans-Atlantic love affair with the French writer Simone de Beauvoir lasted with intervals for 17 years and ended in bitter accusations.  De Beauvoir dedicated her book The Mandarins to Algren, and kept his ring, but never left Jean-Paul Sartre, her life's companion…

And you will find this –

"At first, I had found it amusing meeting in the flesh that classic American species: self-made leftist writer. Now, I began taking an interest in Brogan. Through his stories, you got the feeling that he claimed no rights on life and that nevertheless he had always had a passionate desire to live. I liked that mixture of modesty and eagerness." (Simone de Beauvoir in The Mandarins, 1957; dedicated to Nelson Algren, who is Lewis Bogan in the novel)

Is this famous quote about Simone de Beauvoir?

Read this and decide - A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren

Simone De Beauvoir - New Press; (August 1, 1998)  ISBN: 156584422X

It is of course available in the original French

LETTRES À NELSON ALGREN
DE SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
Date de publication : 12/3/1999
Editeur : Gallimard
Pages : 304
Prix du livre : 9.9 Euros 

  ___

Bob Patterson provides the photo of Mom’s – this place where one should never eat - and your editor took photos of Bob’s beer, appropriate for Mom’s. 

And Bob tells me this might have been parked outside…