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Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of The Locust, by Nathanael West

Two Novels; New Introduction by Jonathan Lethem

Miss Lonelyhearts — compared by Flannery O’Connor to Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying — is about a newspaper reporter assigned to write the agony column, but, caught up in a vision of suffering, he seeks a way out (through Art, Sex, Religion), only to be rebuffed at every turn by his cynical editor Shrike.
The Day of the Locust—considered by many to be the best novel ever written about Hollywood—is about Tod Hackett, who hopes for a career in set design only to discover the boredom and emptiness of Hollywood’s inhabitants. In the end, only blood will serve. The day of the locust is at hand . . . .
 
“Taken together, these two 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.” —L.E. Sissman, The New Yorker
 
“West, a parodist with rancid genius, achieved his masterwork in Miss Lonelyhearts.” —Harold Bloom
 
“The Day of the Locust has scenes of extraordinary power.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
 
“The Day of the Locust is brilliant, savage and arresting—a truly great novel.” —Dorothy Parker