Nathanael West facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Nathanael West
Born	Nathan Weinstein (1903-10-17)October 17, 1903 New York, New York, U.S.
Died	December 22, 1940(1940-12-22) (aged 37) El Centro, California, U.S.
Resting place	Mount Zion Cemetery, Queens, New York
Occupation	Novelist, screenwriter
Alma mater	Brown University
Notable works	Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) The Day of the Locust (1939)
Spouse	Eileen McKenney

Nathanael West (born Nathan Weinstein; October 17, 1903 – December 22, 1940) was an American writer and screenwriter. He is best known for two special novels: Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and The Day of the Locust (1939). These books use satire, which means they make fun of things to show how silly or wrong they are. Miss Lonelyhearts is about the newspaper world, and The Day of the Locust is about the Hollywood film industry.

Discovering Nathanael West's Early Life

Nathanael West was born Nathan Weinstein in New York City. His parents, Anuta and Max Weinstein, were Jewish immigrants from what is now Kaunas, Lithuania. They lived in a nice neighborhood in New York.

West was not very interested in school. He even left high school early. He got into Tufts College by changing his school records. After being asked to leave Tufts, he got into Brown University. He used the school records of his cousin, who was also named Nathan Weinstein.

West's Reading Habits and Interests

Even though West did not do much schoolwork at Brown, he read a lot. He liked French surrealist writers and British poets. He was interested in unusual writing styles and topics. He also became interested in Christianity and mysticism, which is about spiritual experiences.

His friends at a summer camp called him "Pep" because he was often sleepy. West himself would joke about not being good at sports. He often told a story about how he lost a baseball game for his team. This story later inspired his short story "Western Union Boy".

Changing His Name and Starting Work

Since Jewish students could not join most fraternities, his main friend was S. J. Perelman. Perelman later married West's sister, Laura. West barely finished his degree at Brown. After college, he went to Paris for three months. This is when he changed his name to Nathanael West.

His family faced money problems in the late 1920s. West came home and worked for his father in construction. He then found a job as the night manager of the Hotel Kenmore Hall in Manhattan. One of his experiences at the hotel later inspired a scene in his novel The Day of the Locust. In 1933, he became the manager of the Sutton Hotel in New York City.

Nathanael West as an Author

West had been writing since college. But his quiet night job at the hotel gave him time to work on his first novel. This book became Miss Lonelyhearts (1933). He also published The Dream Life of Balso Snell in 1931, which he had thought of in college. West was part of a group of writers in New York City.

In 1933, West bought a farm in Pennsylvania. But he soon got a job as a scriptwriter for Columbia Pictures and moved to Hollywood. He published a third novel, A Cool Million, in 1934. None of his first three books sold well, earning him less than $800. So, he had money problems in the mid-1930s. He sometimes worked on screenplays for movies. Many of these were B movies, which are lower-budget films.

Writing The Day of the Locust

During this time, West wrote The Day of the Locust. He used many of the places and characters from his own life in a hotel on Hollywood Boulevard for his novel.

In November 1939, West was hired as a screenwriter by RKO Radio Pictures. He worked with Boris Ingster on a movie script for the novel Before the Fact (1932). West and Ingster wrote the script in seven weeks. West focused on the characters and talking parts, while Ingster worked on the story's structure.

RKO gave the film, which was later called Suspicion (1941), to Alfred Hitchcock. But Hitchcock already had his own script for the movie. So, West and Ingster's script was not used. You can still find their script in a collection of West's works.

Nathanael West's Death

On December 22, 1940, West and his wife, Eileen McKenney, were driving back to Los Angeles from a hunting trip in Mexico. West did not stop at a stop sign in El Centro, California. This caused a car crash, and both he and McKenney died.

Eileen McKenney was the inspiration for the main character in the Broadway play My Sister Eileen. She and West were supposed to fly to New York City for the play's opening on December 26. West was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Queens, New York. His wife's ashes were placed in his coffin.

Nathanael West's Work and Legacy

Nathanael West was not very famous during his life. But his reputation grew after he died. This happened especially after his collected novels were published in 1957. Miss Lonelyhearts is seen as West's best work.

Day of the Locust was made into a movie in 1975. It starred Donald Sutherland and Karen Black. Miss Lonelyhearts was also made into films (in 1933, 1958, 1983), a stage play (1957), and an opera (2006).

West's novels often showed how the "American dream" had gone wrong. He wrote about how people faced problems both in their spirits and in their money. The poet W. H. Auden even created the term "West's disease." This term describes poverty that affects both a person's spirit and their money. Many books have been written about West's life, including a detailed biography by Jay Martin in 1970.

Published Works

Novels

• The Dream Life of Balso Snell (1931)
• Miss Lonelyhearts (1933)
• A Cool Million (1934)
• The Day of the Locust (1939)

Plays

• Even Stephen (1934, with S. J. Perelman)
• Good Hunting (1938, with Joseph Schrank)

Short stories

• "Western Union Boy"
• "The Imposter"

Posthumous collections

• Bercovitch, Sacvan, ed. Nathanael West, Novels and Other Writings (Library of America, 1997) ISBN: 978-1-883011-28-4

Screenplays

See also

In Spanish: Nathanael West para niños