Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust

Description:

"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.

subjects: Advice columnists,  Motion picture industry,  Fiction,  American fiction,  open_syllabus_project,  Motion picture industry, fiction,  Hollywood (los angeles, calif.), fiction,  Fiction, general,  American fiction (fictional works by one author),  New york (n.y.), fiction,  Advice columnists--new york (state)--new york--fiction,  Motion picture industry--california--los angeles--fiction,  Ps3545.e8334 m5 1969,  Ps 3545 e8334 m5 1969

Places: Los Angeles (Calif.),  New York (N.Y.),  Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)