A review by imthechillalex
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

4.0

You can’t help but get sad reading this and realizing how influential West was on so many portrayals of LA/Hollywood to follow (Ellroy and Barton Fink). I got the same feeling reading Fariña’s Been Down So Long in that you get the sense there really was quite nearly a great “American novel” from them that would have followed their final book if they didn’t die young. Regardless this is great loser literature— freaks, deadbeats, deviants quixotic Ivy leaguers, dullard middle Americans, failed vaudeville comedians. It builds a broader canvas, one of broken dreams and the movie business pasting over the underclass’ own inhabitants. It makes sense it all coalesces and burns into apocalypse.