Nathanael West

Born as Nathan Weinstein, the only son of a wealthy Manhattan real estate developer, West grew up as an overly spoiled child, largely burdened by the belief that he shouldn't be expected to work or show up on time or in any other way trouble himself to get by in the world. The Depression did a lot to revise this attitude. There is abundant evidence as to the domineering nature of his Russian Jewish mother in his novels along with sexual ambiguity (although he seems to have favored female prostitutes, given his numerous bouts with gonorrhea). As a child, West was enthralled by Russian novels and decided to pursue a career as an author. To West, a literary career presupposed a life in Paris, the 1920's intellectual Mecca, hanging out with the likes of Joyce and Fitzgerald, but the 4-month trip was largely spent engaging in sexual debauchery while attempting to pass himself off as a literary flaneur. Upon his return to New York, West failed miserably at writing, his short stories were continually rejected by magazines, his first novel had minuscule run of 500 copies (sales of his critically well-reviewed second novel, "Miss Lonelyhearts" suffered when the publisher went bankrupt), a play with his brother in law S. J. Perelman went unproduced and he sought out a career in Hollywood, where he became a pot boiler screenwriter and script doctor. Hollywood provided the financial stability his novels hadn't and a work structure that encouraged productivity. As a novelist, West was decades ahead of the public norm. His characters were the antithesis of anything drawn by Horatio Alger, filled with the grotesque themes. Indeed, West made it his conscious goal to be unlike anyone else and to be ahead of his time.

West was practically unknown to the American public during his lifetime. On 22 Dec 1940, he and his wife Eileen McKenney were returning to Los Angeles from a hunting trip in Mexico to attend the funeral of his friend, F. Scott Fitzgerald, when he ran a stop sign in El Centro, California, and hit another vehicle. He and his wife were killed. McKenney had been the inspiration for the title character in the play "My Sister Eileen", and she and West had been scheduled to fly to New York City for the Broadway opening on 26 Dec 1940. West was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Queens, New York, with his wife's ashes placed in his coffin.