Miss Lonelyhearts & the Day of the Locust - Softcover

Nathanael West

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811218228 ISBN 13: 9780811218221

Publisher: New Directions, 2009

Synopsis

"Somehow or other I seem to have slipped in between all the 'schools, '" observed Nathanael West the year before his untimely death in 1940. "My books meet no needs except my own, their circulation is practically private and I'm lucky to be published." Yet today, West is widely recognized as a prophetic writer whose dark and comic vision of a society obsessed with mass-produced fantasies foretold much of what was to come in American life. Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), which West envisioned as "a novel in the form of a comic strip, " tells of an advice-to-the-lovelorn columnist who becomes tragically embroiled in the desperate lives of his readers. The Day of the Locust (1939) is West's great dystopian Hollywood novel based on his experiences at the seedy fringes of the movie industry.

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Review

In dark times, Miss Lonelyhearts shines the brightest light in the blackest places. For this reason West s novel has never felt more alive than today. --Nathaniel Rich"

About the Author

In 1940, when an automobile accident prematurely claimed Nathanael West's life, he was a relatively obscure writer, the author of only four short novels. West's reputation has grown considerably since then and he is now considered one of the 20th century's major authors. Born in New York, West worked as the night manager of the Kenmore Hotel on East 23rd Street in Manhattan, as a contract scriptwriter for Columbia Pictures in Hollywood, and as a screenwriter for RKO Radio Picture.

Jonathan Lethem is the author of six novels, including the bestsellers The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Brooklyn and Maine.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0811218228
• ISBN 13: 9780811218221
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208