View source for Nathanael West

{{about||the Virginia politician|Nathaniel West (captain)|the actor|Nathan West|the character|Nathan West (General Hospital)}}
{{more citations needed|date=November 2015}}

{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name          = Nathanael West
| image         =
| imagesize     = 
| alt           = 
| caption       = 
| pseudonym     = 
| birth_name    = Nathan Weinstein
| birth_date    = {{birth date|1903|10|17|mf=yes}}
| birth_place   = [[New York City, New York]], US
| death_date    = {{death date and age|1940|12|22|1903|10|17|mf=yes}}
| death_place   = [[El Centro, California]], US
| resting_place = [[Mount Zion Cemetery (New York City)|Mount Zion Cemetery]], [[Queens, New York]], US
| occupation    = Novelist, screenwriter
| language      = English
| nationality   = American
| citizenship   = American
| alma_mater    = [[Brown University]]
| notableworks  = ''[[Miss Lonelyhearts]]'', ''[[The Day of the Locust]]''
| spouse        = Eileen McKenney (1940)
}}

'''Nathanael West''' (born '''Nathan Weinstein'''; October 17, 1903 – December 22, 1940) was an American author and screenwriter.<ref>Obituary ''[[Variety Obituaries|Variety]]'' December 25, 1940.</ref> He is remembered for two darkly [[satirical]] novels: ''[[Miss Lonelyhearts]]'' (1933) and ''[[The Day of the Locust]]'' (1939), set respectively in the newspaper and Hollywood film industries.

==Early life==
Nathanael West was born '''Nathan Weinstein''' in [[New York City]], the first child of [[Ashkenazi Jewish]] parents, Anuta (Anna, née Wallenstein, 1878&ndash;1935) and Max (Morduch) Weinstein (1878&ndash;1932),<ref>[http://records.ancestry.com/Anuta_Anna_Wallenstein_records.ashx?pid=138060268 Anuta (Anna) Wallenstein ancestry records]</ref> from [[Kaunas|Kovno]], Russia (present-day [[Kaunas|Kaunas, Lithuania]]), who maintained an upper middle class household in a Jewish neighborhood on the [[Upper West Side]]. West displayed little ambition in academics, dropping out of high school and only gaining admission into [[Tufts College]] by forging his high school transcript.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Woodward|first1=Joe|title=Alive Inside the Wreck: A Biography of Nathanael West|date=2011|publisher=OR Books|location=New York, London|isbn=978-1-935928-38-6|page=54}}</ref>

After being expelled from Tufts, West got into [[Brown University]] by appropriating the transcript of a fellow Tufts student, his cousin, Nathan Weinstein. Although West did little schoolwork at Brown, he read extensively. He ignored the [[Literary realism|realist]] fiction of his American contemporaries in favor of French [[Surrealism|surrealists]] and British and Irish poets of the 1890s, in particular [[Oscar Wilde]]. West's interests focused on unusual literary style as well as unusual content. He became interested in [[Christianity]] and [[mysticism]], as experienced or expressed through literature and art.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Scheurich|first1=Neil|title=Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts and the Problem of Suffering|journal=Pastoral Psychology|date=2006|volume=54|page=578|doi=10.1007/s11089-006-0026-1}}</ref>

West's classmates at Brown nicknamed him "Pep" after a school trip where after only a few minutes of walking he quickly ran out of breath. West himself acknowledged and made fun of his lack of physical prowess in recounting the story of a baseball game where he cost his team the game. Wells Root, a close friend of West, remembers hearing this tale half a dozen times, recalling that everyone had placed bets on the game, which came down to the final inning with the score tied and the enemy at bat with two outs. At that point the batter hit a long fly towards West;

<blockquote>He put his hands up to catch it and for some inexplicable reason didn't hold them close together. The ball tore through, hit him in the forehead, and bounced into some brush. There was a roar from the crowd and [West] took one look and turned tail. To a man, the crowd had risen, gathered bats, sticks, stones, and anything they could lay hands on and were in hot pursuit. He vanished into some woods and didn't emerge until nightfall. In telling the story he was convinced that if they had caught him they would have killed him.<ref>quoted in Martin, Jay. ''Nathanael West: The Art of His Life''. New York: Hayden, 1971, p. 55.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref></blockquote>

It is unclear whether this ever actually happened, but West later re-imagined this in his short story "[[Western Union Boy]]". As Jewish students were not allowed to join most fraternities, his main friend was his future brother-in-law [[S. J. Perelman]]. (Perelman married West's sister Laura.) West barely finished at Brown with a degree. He then went to [[Paris]] for three months, and it was at this point that he changed his name to Nathanael West. His family, who had supported him thus far, ran into financial difficulties in the late 1920s. West returned home and worked sporadically in construction for his father, eventually finding a job as the night manager of the [[Hotel Kenmore Hall]] on East [[23rd Street (Manhattan)|23rd Street]] in [[Manhattan]]. One of West's real-life experiences at the hotel inspired the incident between Romola Martin and Homer Simpson that would later appear in ''[[The Day of the Locust]]'' (1939).<ref>Wisker, Alistair. The Writing of Nathanael West. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990. p.104-106;{{ISBN|0-333-43823-X}}</ref>

==Author==
Although West had been working on his writing since college, it was not until his quiet night job at the hotel that he found the time to put his novel together. It was then that West wrote what would eventually become ''[[Miss Lonelyhearts]]'' (1933). [[Maxim Lieber]] served as his literary agent in 1933. In 1931, however, two years before he completed ''Miss Lonelyhearts'', West published ''[[The Dream Life of Balso Snell]]'', a novel that he had conceived of in college. By then, West was within a group of writers working in and around New York City that included [[William Carlos Williams]] and [[Dashiell Hammett]].{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

In 1933, West bought a farm in eastern [[Pennsylvania]] but soon got a job as a contract scriptwriter for [[Columbia Pictures]] and moved to [[Hollywood]]. He published a third novel, ''[[A Cool Million]]'', in 1934. None of West's three works sold well, however, so he spent the mid-1930s in financial difficulty, sporadically collaborating on screenplays. Many of the films he worked on were [[B movie]]s, such as ''[[Five Came Back]]'' (1939). It was at this time that West wrote ''[[The Day of the Locust]].'' He took many of the settings and minor characters of his novel directly from his experience living in a hotel on [[Hollywood Boulevard]].{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

In November 1939, West was hired as a screenwriter by [[RKO Radio Pictures]], where he collaborated with Boris Ingster on a film adaptation of the novel ''[[Before the Fact]]'' (1932) by [[Francis Iles]]. West and Ingster wrote the screenplay in seven weeks, with West focusing on characterization and dialogue and Ingster focusing on the narrative structure.

RKO assigned the film, eventually released as ''[[Suspicion (1941 film)|Suspicion]]'' (1941), to [[Alfred Hitchcock]]; but Hitchcock already had his own, substantially different, screenplay. Hitchcock's screenplay was written by [[Samson Raphaelson]], [[Joan Harrison (screenwriter)|Joan Harrison]] (Hitchcock's secretary), and [[Alma Reville]] (Hitchcock's wife). West and Ingster's screenplay was abandoned, but the text can be found in the [[Library of America]]'s edition of West's collected works.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

==Death==
On December 22, 1940, West and his wife Eileen McKenney were returning to Los Angeles from a hunting trip in [[Mexico]]. West ran a stop sign in [[El Centro, California]], resulting in a collision in which he and McKenney were killed. (Their deaths occurred the day after that of their friend [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]].) McKenney had been the inspiration for the title character in the Broadway play ''[[My Sister Eileen (play)|My Sister Eileen]]'', and she and West had been scheduled to fly to New York City for the [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] opening on December 26.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/21/realestate/sister-eileen-to-daughter-eileen-a-state-judge.html Profile], nytimes.com, December 21, 2003.</ref>

West was buried in [[Mount Zion Cemetery (New York City)|Mount Zion Cemetery]] in [[Queens, New York]], with his wife's ashes placed in his coffin.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

==His work==
Although West was not widely known during his life, his reputation grew after his death, especially with the publication of his collected novels by [[New Directions Publishing|New Directions]] in 1957. ''Miss Lonelyhearts'' is widely regarded as West's masterpiece. ''[[The Day of the Locust (film)|Day of the Locust]]'' was made into a film which came out in 1975, starring [[Donald Sutherland]] and [[Karen Black]]. Likewise ''Miss Lonelyhearts'' (1933) saw production in film (1933, 1958, 1983), stage (1957), and operatic (2006) versions; and the character "Miss Lonelyhearts" in Hitchcock's film ''[[Rear Window]]'' has parallels to West's work.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Miller|first=Nicholas Andrew|title="Dear Miss Lonelyhearts": Voyeurism and the Spectacle of Human Suffering in ''Rear Window''|journal=Clues: A Journal of Detection|year=2013|volume=31|issue=1|pages=45–56|doi=10.3172/CLU.31.1.45|url=http://mcfarland.metapress.com/content/v7jh632634437842|accessdate=April 13, 2013}}{{dead link|date=February 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

The obscene, garish landscapes of ''The Day of the Locust'' gained force in light of the fact that the remainder of the country was living in drab poverty at the time. Though West attended [[Socialism|socialist]] rallies in New York City's [[Union Square (New York City)|Union Square]], his novels have no affinity to the novels of his contemporary activist writers such as [[John Steinbeck]] and [[John Dos Passos]]. West's writing style does not allow the portrayal of positive political causes, as he admitted in a letter to [[Malcolm Cowley]] regarding ''The Day of the Locust'': "I tried to describe a meeting of the anti-Nazi league, but it didn't fit and I had to substitute a whorehouse and a dirty film".<ref>West, Nathanael. ''Novels & Other Writings''. New York: [[The Library of America]], 1997, p. 795.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>

West saw the [[American dream]] as having been betrayed, both spiritually and materially, and in his writing he presented "a sweeping rejection of political causes, religious faith, artistic redemption and romantic love".<ref>Yaffe, David. "Go West." ''Partisan Review'', 66 (Fall 1999). Page 670.</ref> This idea of the corrupt American dream endured long after his death, in the form of the term "West's disease", coined by the poet [[W. H. Auden]] to refer to poverty that exists in both a spiritual and economic sense. Jay Martin wrote an extensive biography of West in 1970. Another biography, ''Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney'', by [[Marion Meade]] was published in 2010.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}

==Published works==
{{Main|Bibliography of Nathanael West}}

===Novels===
* ''[[The Dream Life of Balso Snell]]'' (1931)
* ''[[Miss Lonelyhearts]]'' (1933)
* ''[[A Cool Million]]'' (1934)
* ''[[The Day of the Locust]]'' (1939)

===Plays===
* ''[[Even Stephen (play)|Even Stephen]]'' (1934, with [[S. J. Perelman]])
* ''[[Good Hunting (Nathanael West)|Good Hunting]]'' (1938, with Joseph Schrank)

===Short stories===
* "[[Western Union Boy]]"
* "[[The Imposter (short story)|The Imposter]]"

===Posthumous collections===
* Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. ''Nathanael West, Novels and Other Writings'' ([[Library of America]], 1997) {{ISBN|978-1-883011-28-4}}

==Screenplays==
{{div col}}
* ''[[Ticket to Paradise (1936 film)|Ticket to Paradise]]'' (1936)
* ''Follow Your Heart'' (1936)
* ''The President's Mystery'' (1936)
* ''Rhythm in the Clouds'' (1937)
* ''It Could Happen to You'' (1937)
* ''Born to Be Wild'' (1938)
* ''[[Five Came Back]]'' (1939)
* ''[[I Stole a Million]]'' (1939)
* ''[[Stranger on the Third Floor]]'' (1940)
* ''[[The Spirit of Culver]]'' (1940)
* ''[[Men Against the Sky]]'' (1940)
* ''[[Let's Make Music]]'' (1940)
* ''[[Suspicion (1941 film)#The West-Ingster screenplay|Before the Fact]]'' (1940) (unproduced)
{{div col end}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Martin, Jay, ''Nathanael West: The Art of His Life'' (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970)
* Meade, Marion, ''Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney'' (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010)
* Seguin, Robert. "New Frontiers in Hollywood: Mobility and Desire in The Day of the Locust". Around Quitting Time: Work and Middle-Class Fantasy in American Fiction. Durham: Duke University Press, 2001, pp.&nbsp;83–119. 
* Woodward, Joe, ''[http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/alive-inside-the-wreck-a-biography-of-nathanael-west-by-joe-woodward Alive Inside the Wreck: A Life of Nathanael West]'' (New York: [[OR Books]], 2011)

==External links==
{{Wikisourceauthor}}
* {{FadedPage|id=West, Nathanael|name=Nathanael West|author=yes}}
* {{IMDb name|0922264}}
* {{Books and Writers|id=nwest|name=Nathanael West}}
* Ingrid Norton, [http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/year-with-short-novels-the-nihilism-of-nathanael-west "The Nihilism of Nathanael West"], ''Open Letters Monthly'' (January 2011)
* Elizabeth Hardwick, [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2003/nov/06/funny-as-a-crutch "Funny as a Crutch"], ''New York Review of Books'', November 6, 2003
* [http://www.thomaslarson.com/publications/essays-and-memoirs/99-almost-beautiful.html Life of Nathanael West], thomaslarson.com
* {{Find a Grave|6210}}
* [http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=4&section=notes Profile],  Library of America website
* [http://www.nathanaelwest.com Promotional website for ''Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney''], nathanaelwest.com
* {{Librivox author|id=8506}}

{{Nathanael West}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:West, Nathanael}}
[[Category:1940 deaths]]
[[Category:1903 births]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:Brown University alumni]]
[[Category:Burials at Mount Zion Cemetery (New York City)]]
[[Category:Jewish American novelists]]
[[Category:Modernist writers]]
[[Category:People from the Upper West Side]]
[[Category:Road incident deaths in California]]