Razor-edged, unforgiving and unmissable satire of Hollywood by Nathanael West
Nathanael West (1903-1940) published four novels - The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931) Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) A Cool Million (1934) The Day of the Locust (1939). West said that 'an artist can afford to be anything but dull'. He died almost unknown in a car crash at the age of thirty-seven. His fans include W.H. Auden, Matt Groening (there is a bookkeeper character in West's 1939 novel The Day Of The Locust called Homer Simpson), F Scott Fitzgerald and Johnny Depp.
As austerity ripples on in this century, the book's combination of
escapism and relevance continues to draw me in. The language is so
inventive, the characters so brilliantly (often absurdly) captured,
and their behaviour so close to pantomime, that it renders the
whole a garishly compelling and thought-provoking read
*Guardian*
Black-as-pitch Hollywood farce
*The Guardian*
The Day of the Locust has scenes of extraordinary power. Especially
I was impressed by the pathological crowd at the premiere, the
character and handling of the aspirant actress and the uncanny
medieval feeling of some of his Hollywood background set off by
those vividly drawn grotesques
*F. Scott Fitzgerald*
A talented and somewhat neglected author... wonderfully imaginative
and slightly disturbed
*Daily Telegraph*
It certainly packs a wallop
*John Dos Passos*
These novels say more about the way we live now- and the things
that brought us to our present pass - than any other work of
fiction I can think of
*New Yorker*
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