Nathanael West : Novels and Other Writings : The Dream Life of Balso Snell / Miss Lonelyhearts / A Cool Million / The Day of the Locust / Letters (Library of America)

Thanks to the efforts of a bunch of Harvard grad students, this is the only book you need to become a cocktail party expert on Nathanael West (born Nathan Weinstein, 1903; died in Hollywood in 1940). My favorite part of the book is the capsule biography in the back. He drops out of high school (like me!) and alters his transcript to get into Tufts. He flunks out of Tufts but gets hold of a transcript for another Nathan Weinstein, who was apparently a pretty good student. He uses this to get into Brown and becomes an Ivy League graduate in 1924. Oh yes, the writing... West's prose could easily pass for a New Yorker story circa 1985. Furthermore, his characters behave a lot like our contemporaries. None of this struck me as remarkable but I think it accounts for why he was so widely admired by good writers of his day and so roundly ignored by readers during the 1930s (perhaps 6,000 copies of his books were sold during his lifetime). Even if his writing style hadn't been so modern, releasing the bleak Miss Lonelyhearts in 1933 cannot have been an inspired marketing idea (the publisher went bankrupt just as the book was released). If you want to read just one West novel, my personal choice would be Day of the Locust (1939), his last work. It is about the people destroyed by their dreams of California and Hollywood, seen through the eyes of a journeyman studio artist. He's obsessed with an aspiring actress, Faye Greener: "Her invitation wasn't to pleasure, but to struggle, hard and sharp, closer to murder than to love. If you threw yourself on her, it would be like throwing yourself from the parapet of a skyscraper. You would do it with a scream. You couldn't expect to rise again. Your teeth would be driven into your skull like nails into a pine board and your back would be broken. You wouldn't even have time to sweat or close your eyes." The strangest novel in the collection is A Cool Million, wherein a Candide-like young man, Lemuel Pitkin, goes out to make his fortune in what a variety of Panglosses keep telling him is the Land of Opportunity. As in a Horatio Alger story, Pitkin meets a lot of rich and powerful men who are in a position to help him. West departs from Alger in that Pitkin is cheated and mutilated by all of his encounters with the rest of humanity.

This is a must read. It took guts to satirize the "American Dream" in probably the best book of the collection, "A Cool Million." Especially in the era in which he wrote. Historically, most satirists are loathed by the general public as they challenge consensus reality so I'm not surprised he wasn't wildly read during his time. Glad he found readers after his death and I hope he finds more.I loved every story in this volume. "Dream Life of Balso Snell" might challenge readers as it's surreal and falls into poetic prose at times and the story’s structure is nontraditional. However, if you stick with it, reread passages, you'll find a lot of a lot of insight. The book has depth.His writing reminds me of "The Magic Christian" by Terry Southern and a "Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole. If you love those books you'll also love West's.

Library of America can be counted on for a solid production: the pages are legible, the book, if a bit bulky, is portable, encouraging us to read, and I think the editorial apparatus well done. It is frustrating to have an essay on Hollywood, "Makers of Mass Neuroses," (mentioned in the chronology) NOT included in the collection, without explanation, but this is more than outweighed by the other material to be found here. I must say my admiration for Nathanael West grew considerably thanks to this volume.

Was West before his time or simply not of his time? Doesn't matter. His novels were concise, satiric, sharp and terrifyingly genius. This edition is certainly the most complete - with novels, stories, screenplays, etc. A fine addition to any fan's collection.

Excellent...all of the Library of Congress editions have been wonderful so far...a pure gift!

I had Nathanael West's novels from college, and was looking for a copy of Western Union Boy, among other writings. This volume was resonably priced, contained everything I was looking for, and arrived early in pristine condition.

Great unknown classics!

Amazing book and delivered on time.