William Saroyan’s Underwood typewriter, as seen inside the Saroyan archive on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. Charles Russo/SFGATE

By 1934, he had published a compilation of those short stories, led by the Depression-era story of a young struggling writer called “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze,” which made him famous at 26 years old. Saroyan was so in demand, his critics compared him to a cult leader.

The word “Saroyanesque” became an adjective for any story that captured the enthusiasm and optimism of the human spirit.

“I certainly didn’t gamble away every penny,” he wrote in a 1961 memoir. “… I drank some of it away, and I bought a raincoat.”