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

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

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