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Miss Lonelyhearts / The Day of the Locust

by breaking_glass

From the New Directions Paperback Edition of Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust:

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts:
I am in such pain I dont know what to do sometimes I think I will kill myself my kidneys hurt so much. My husband thinks no woman can be a good catholic and not have children irregardless of the pain...

Miss Lonelyhearts answers letters like this one everyday. What began as a lighthearted newspaper job eventually becomes a living hell for Miss Lonelyhearts, who is actually a young man. With the weight of depression era New York City's lost, lonely and mistreated on his shoulders, he becomes disillusioned and hopeless, feeling trapped in his position. The question is, when, and how, will it end? This black hearted-ly humorous novella is short, around 70 pages, but really packs a punch.

Now we head all the way to the West Coast, to sunny Los Angeles. The Day of the Locust is now considered an American classic, and is quite possibly the definitive novel about early Hollywood. The tale centers around a young Hollywood painter/costume designer named Tod Hackett, who becomes involved with a deplorable yet colorful cast of characters - an aspiring and manipulative young starlet, a cowboy, a Mexican cock-fighter, and a pathetically humorous character named Homer Simpson. Yes, Homer Simpson. (Matt Groening might deny that America's lovable doughnut-scarfing family man's name was taken straight from The Day of the Locust, but I don't believe him.) This one has a stunner of an ending. A film adaptation was made in 1975, although having not yet seen it, I cannot vouch for it.

Author Nathanael West's career ended far too soon in 1940. Tragically - and weirdly - he and his wife were killed in a car accident heading to the funeral services of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who happened to be a great admirer of West's.

Comments

I am soooo glad to see this post! I love "Miss Lonelyhearts." A truly underappreciated classic in my opinion.

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