Word: nathanael
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...Nathanael West's cool, cruelly funny novel, first published in 1939, has become a classic vision of the heart of Southern California. West, who did some screenwriting himself, knew the raw fringes of the movie world. He saw the kind of anxiety that led people to Los Angeles and the gaudy madness that was nurtured there. He used Los Angeles, and particularly the tawdry glamour of Hollywood, as a perfect metaphor for the screaming end of many poor dreams of glory. West wrote with fury, but without rancor or condescension. "It is hard to laugh at the need...
...alone to write and complains that success can be lethal. "People always want to collect you for cocktail parties and take you to bed," she says. They have also inundated her with letters spelling out ultimate secrets. Notes Jong: "The whole thing makes me feel like Miss Lonelyhearts in Nathanael West's novella." A self-styled feminist, she recalls the day a high school boy asked her if she wanted to "grow up and be a secretary." Actually she always wanted to be a writer. Deeply affected by the suicide of her friend Anne Sexton, Jong is determined...
...transatlantic flight, however, had a cast worthy of Nathanael West. Decked out in sheepskin, boas and all the desperately glamorous trappings of the underground, 156 passengers took off to the sound of popping champagne corks. "Being on the first transatlantic hip flight is something to remember," grinned Max Scherr, the penurious editor emeritus of the Berkeley Barb, as he polished off his third glass of free Jacque Bonet champagne...
...heart attack; in Los Angeles. Best known for his Broadway antics in Angel in the Wings (1948), Hartman appeared frequently on television and made numerous films, among them Inherit the Wind (1960) and Luv (1967). He had recently begun preparing for a major supporting role in a movie of Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust...
...cool, clinical touch. As he demonstrated in two previous novels (Americana and the much overpraised End Zone), the author has a knack for chill atmosphere, satiric caricature and witty dialogue. He is also a good literary mechanic who knows how to assemble spare parts from older writers like Nathanael West, Paul Bowles and William Burroughs, and drive off with them...