orig. Nathan Weinstein
born Oct. 17, 1903, New York, N.Y., U.S.
died Dec. 22, 1940, near El Centro, Calif.
U.S. writer.
He attended Brown University and was supporting himself as a hotel manager, giving free or low-rent rooms to struggling fellow writers, when he wrote the novella Miss Lonelyhearts (1933), about an advice columnist whose attempts to solace his correspondents end in ironic defeat. A Cool Million (1934) mocks the American dream as popularized by Horatio Alger . His last novel, The Day of the Locust (1939), depicts the savagery lurking beneath the Hollywood dream. Though not widely read until after his death in an auto accident at age 37, West is now considered a major American novelist.