Synopsis
"West is still a satirist with few peers and no betters, and a writer of bleak, haunting power." — Kirkus Reviews. In this 1931 Dada-inspired work, the first novel of the author of Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, the eponymous antihero stumbles across the Trojan Horse and climbs inside, embarking upon a dream within a dream. His journey through a mental jungle blends grandiose literary and religious allusions with erotic and scatological humor, as he encounters a contentious guide, a biographer writing a biography of a biographer, and a mystic trying to crucify himself with thumbtacks. Innovative and original, West's novel takes an unforgettable look at the dark side of the American dream. Unabridged republication of the classic 1931 edition.
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About Nathanael West
N
Nathanael West
1903–1940
Nathan Wallenstein Weinstein was born in 1903 in New York City. He attended Brown University and from 1924 to 1931 he lived in Paris, where he wrote *The Dream Life of Balso Snell*. On his return to New York, he managed a residential hotel and was associate editor, with [William Carlos Williams](https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL219856A/William_Carlos_Williams), of the magazine *Contact*. *Miss Lonelyhearts* appeared in 1933, *A Cool Million* in 1934 and *The Day of the Locust* in 1939. He worked on film scripts in Hollywood for the last five years of his life. He and his wife were tragically killed in a car accident in 1940. *--Penguin Books* Photo *--Wikicommons*
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