The writer who was to become known as Nathanael West was born Nathan Weinstein in New York City; he was the first son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. His individuality early exhibited itself in his indifference toward school; his interest in the arts, books, and theatre; and his reluctance to follow his father in a business career. While he did not graduate from high school, by a series of creative manipulations of transcripts he was eventually admitted to Brown University with advanced standing and graduated in 1924. By this time he had already written and drawn illustrations for his college and summer camp magazines and was bent upon becoming a writer.

When he died at the age of thirty-seven, he had produced four books, at least two of which, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and The Day of the Locust (1939), are regarded as American classics. All of his books are marked by a deep...