Why The American Sentimentalist?

Q: What is sentimentality? What is sentimental?

Algren: Oh, it’s an indulgence in emotion. You want men and women to be good to each other and you’re very stubborn in thinking that they want to be. I’m not against sentimentality. I think you need it. I mean, I don’t think you get a true picture of people without it in writing.

Q: Go on.

Algren: It’s a kind of poetry, it’s an emotional poetry, and, to bring it back to the literary scene, I don’t think anything is true that doesn’t have it, that doesn’t have poetry in it.

-H.E.F. Donohue

from Conversations with Nelson Algren

1963

In a sense, American Sentimentalism is a kind of sentimentalism about America. In it’s purest form, it’s a belief about the still-possible redeeming qualities of what used to be called America. Not it’s arrogance, or it’s sense of exceptionalism or triumphalism – but what was once so special about the place, and its peoples, and what could once be said out loud without cynicism or regret. Ideas about democracy and inclusiveness, about prosperity touching all, about a future that meant something more than a repeat of the mistakes of the past. And about a place where the better part of human nature was allowed to take root and flourish.