Tod Hackett is a brilliant young artist - and a man in danger of losing his heart. Brought to an LA studio as a set-designer, he is soon caught up in a fantasy world where the cult of celebrity rules. But when he becomes besotted by the beautiful Faye, an aspiring actress and occasional call-girl, his dream rapidly becomes a nightmare. For, with little in the way of looks and no money to buy her time, Tod's desperate passion can only lead to frustration, disillusionment and rage.

The Day of the Locust is a 1939 novel by American author Nathanael West, set in Hollywood, California during the Great Depression, its overarching themes deal with the alienation and desperation of a broad group of odd individuals who exist at the fringes of the Hollywood movie industry. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Day of the Locust #73 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Time magazine included the novel in its list of 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005, and noted critic Harold Bloom included it in his list of canonical works in the book The Western Canon.

Product Description: Nathanael West was a comic artist whose insight into the brutalities and absurdities of modern life proved prophetic. He is famous for two masterpieces, Miss Lonelyhearts and the most penetrating novel ever written about Hollywood, The Day of the Locust...read more

Two short novels, one set in New York and the other in Hollywood, dramatically depict the extremes of the human condition and the destructive forces pervading modern American life

Two historical works feature the author's comic and horrific depictions of early twentieth-century America, including the satirical Depression-era A Cool Million and metaphorical fantasy The Dream Life of Balso Snell. By the author of The Day of the Locust. Original.

Product Description: Nathanael West has been hailed as “an apocalyptic writer,” “a writer on the left,” and “a precursor to postmodernism.” But until now no critic has succeeded in fully engaging West’s distinctive method of negation. In American Superrealism, Jonathan Veitch examines West’s letters, short stories, screenplays and novels—some of which are discussed here for the first time—as well as West’s collaboration with William Carlos Williams during their tenure as the editors of Contact...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

The first comprehensive, authoritative edition of the work of America's prince of black humor and social satire includes his most famous novels of the thirties, along with his poetry, essays, plays, film scripts, and letters.

Product Description: G K Hall & Co., New York, 1994. Hard Cover. First edition, VG++/no DJ, cloth, 227pp, ex-copy of local Seminary w/virtually no abuse, text is bright, clean and fresh-in NF cond., blank plates to early pages to freshen, stamp to bottom edge, clear film attached to eps w/white catalogue stamp to spine...read more

Product Description: A Cool Million (1934) subtitled "The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin", is a satiric Horatio Alger story set in the midst of the Depression and is written in a bracing, mock-heroic style that has lost none of its wit or power. The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931), West's first work, was described by one delighted critic as "a fantasy about some rather scatalogical adventures of the hero in the innards of the Trojan Horse...read more