Nathanael West

Day after day, Miss Lonelyhearts sits in his office responding to letters from Broken-hearted, Sick-of-it-all, and Desperate, dispensing words of hope, inspiration, and other platitudes to get his readers through their tormented days. But its all getting to be too much for Miss Lonelyhearts. Under the weight of his colleagues mockery and the endless gloom of his correspondence, Miss Lonelyhearts finds himself crippled with cynicism and dysfunction. Set in New York City at the height of the Great Depression, Miss Lonelyhearts stands as one of the most intelligent and hilarious works of the 20th century. Laced with dark humour, irony, and razor-sharp insight, this novel is as hauntingly relevant today as it was nearly a hundred years ago. Wildly funny, desperately sad, brutal and kind, furious and patient, there was no other like Nathanael West. - Dorothy Parker In dark times, Miss Lonelyhearts shines the brightest light in the blackest places. For this reason Wests novel has never felt more alive than today. - The Daily Beast A miniature comic epic. - Edmund Wilson Rendered with scalpel-precision . . . Nathanael Wests masterpiece is a mercilessly unsympathetic novel on the theme of sympathy. - Jonathan Lethem

La California è la terra promessa, dove coltivare i sogni più grandi e le illusioni più ardite. Ma è davvero così luccicante, la vita a Los Angeles? I protagonisti del libro scoprono una Hollywood finta e artificiale: alcuni alla disperata ricerca di successo, altri semplicemente per morire. Il grande sogno americano può anche trasformarsi in un incubo.

Ritorna uno dei piu celebri romanzi sul mondo del cinema e sulla vita segreta di Hollywood. Da questo libro fu tratto il cult-movie del 1975 con Donald Sutherland e si suppone che uno dei personaggi, Homer Simpson, abbia ispirato proprio il protagonista de "I Simpson", la serie a cartoni animati piu celebre al mondo. La California e la terra promessa, dove coltivare i sogni piu grandi e le illusioni piu ardite. Ma e davvero cosi luccicante, la vita a Los Angeles? I protagonisti del libro scoprono una Hollywood finta e artificiale: alcuni alla disperata ricerca di successo, altri semplicemente per morire. Le loro vicende si intrecciano fino al caratteristico exploit con cui si concludono i romanzi di West. Il grande sogno americano puo anche trasformarsi in un incubo.

Novela retrata bastidores da indústria de cinema de Hollywood durante a Grande Depressão. Volume traz também textos inéditos do autor americano.Los Angeles, anos 1930. Enquanto a economia norte-ameri

In The Day of the Locust a young artist, Tod Hackett, arrives in LA full of dreams. When he meets Faye Greener, an aspiring actress, he is intoxicated and his desperate passion explodes into rage... Miss Lonelyhearts is a decidedly off-kilter, darkly comic tale set in New York in the early 30s.

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 ...

Nathanael West, originally named Nathan Weinstein, (1903 1940), was an American writer, primarily known for his satirical novels of the 1930s. His best-known works are "The Day of the Locust" and "Miss Lonelyhearts." Published in 1939, "The Day of the Locust" is a novel about the mythologies of Hollywood and the "American Dream." Enigmatic and disconcerting, this work narrates the experience of a set designer in a semi-hallucinatory and artificial Los Angeles (itself resembling a movie set), inhabited by a parade of eccentric characters and a crowd bewitched by the magic of cinema and promises of abundance and happiness. Both apocalyptic and moving, violent and absurdly comic, "The Day of the Locust" is, in the opinion of many, the best novel ever written about Hollywood.