West, Nathanael, 1903–40, American novelist, whose real name was Nathan Weinstein, b. New York City, grad. Brown Univ., 1924. An innovative, highly original author, West revealed the sterility and grotesqueness underlying the American dream; his vision has profoundly influenced subsequent writers. After spending two years in Paris, he worked as a hotel manager in New York. His first novel, The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931), is a garish satire that foreshadowed the work to follow. Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), his most successful novel, relates the painful life of a columnist for the lovelorn whose misguided priestliness leads him to a tragic and ironic involvement with his suffering correspondents. He also edited and wrote for several magazines and in 1935 moved to Hollywood, where he became a scriptwriter. A Cool Million (1934) was West's bitter indictment of a materialistic world. His last novel, The Day of the Locust (1939), presents a gallery of horrifying misfits living in a vacuous, surreal Hollywood atmosphere. West was never a commercial success in his own time, but his popularity rose after his premature death at 37 in an automobile accident. The Complete Works of Nathanael West was published in 1957.

Bibliography

See biography by J. Martin (1970); studies by R. Reid (1967) and J. F. Light (2d ed. 1971).

West, Nathanael

orig. Nathan Weinstein

(born Oct. 17, 1903, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Dec. 22, 1940, near El Centro, Calif.) U.S. writer. He attended Brown University and was supporting himself as a hotel manager, giving free or low-rent rooms to struggling fellow writers, when he wrote the novella Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), about an advice columnist whose attempts to solace his correspondents end in ironic defeat. A Cool Million (1934) mocks the American dream as popularized by Horatio Alger. His last novel, The Day of the Locust (1939), depicts the savagery lurking beneath the Hollywood dream. Though not widely read until after his death in an auto accident at age 37, West is now considered a major American novelist.

West, Nathanael (b. Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein) (1903–40) writer; born in New York City. He studied at Tufts (1921) and Brown (Ph.B. 1924), and lived in Paris for two years where he finished his first novel. He changed his name legally in 1926. Until 1933 he was a manager of various inexpensive hotels belonging to his father in New York City and he continued to write. He settled in California (1935) to become a screenwriter (1936–40). His fiction was largely neglected until after he and his wife died in an automobile accident. His work was revived by critics between 1947 and 1957, and he is praised for its sensitive mix of mordant humor and pathos, as in the novels Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), and The Day of the Locust (1939).