Miss Lonelyhearts Study Guide

The son of Ashkenazi Jewish parents, Nathanael West was a writer and screenwriter born and raised in the Upper West Side of New York City. West was not particularly academically ambitious in his youth. He dropped out of high school, was expelled from Tufts University, and completed little schoolwork at Brown University, where he ultimately earned his bachelor’s degree. Though he had been writing since college, West didn’t complete his first novel until he was working as a hotel night manager in the early 1930s. He then spent several years working as a scriptwriter and screenwriter in Hollywood. In 1940, at age 37, West died in a car accident in El Centro, California, alongside his wife, Eileen McKenney. Today, West is remembered for two satirical novels, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, the latter of which was published in 1939.

Miss Lonelyhearts takes place against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the economic downturn that lasted from 1929 to 1939 and detrimentally impacted several countries across the world. As West depicts through the various letters that Miss Lonelyhearts receives from readers throughout the novel, the Great Depression was a time of significant economic suffering for many Americans. Despite the United States having the largest economy in the world at the time, unemployment rates rose, and many businesses began to fail, following the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Importantly, the stock market crash, which ultimately signified the beginning of a long period of economic difficulty, occurred in New York City. Economic turmoil and a resulting disenchantment with the American dream were certainly on West’s mind as he worked on the novel, as many Americans grew disillusioned and hopeless during the Great Depression. 

The most famous of West’s three other novels is The Day of the Locust, published in 1939. This satirical novel takes place in the Hollywood film industry, features an Ivy League-educated artist, and emphasizes the elusive nature of the American dream. Also in West’s circle as a writer working in New York City was Dashiell Hammett, the mystery writer. Hammett’s 1929 novel Red Harvest explores numerous murders occurring during a Montana mining town labor dispute, and his 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon follows the unflinching detective Sam Spade and has been adapted several times for the screen. Another contemporary—and personal friend of both West and his wife Eileen—was F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of the 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, which famously critiques American society during the Jazz Age.