In the waning days of the Depression, on the evening of December 26th, 1940,  a comedy premiering at the Biltmore Theater in New York earned unanimous  raves, exploding it into the Broadway  firmament.  Few of the glowing reviews  for My Sister Eileen mentioned  that the show’s true-life heroine had been killed with her husband in a car crash four days earlier. Eileen McKenney had achieved a certain stardom in her sister’s New Yorker tales, whereas her husband, the author of four slender novels and a score of  B-movies,  was relatively unknown to the general public; none of his books had sold  well. A writer ahead of his time, Nathanael West  created psychologically complex antiheroes and violent pitch-dark fictions that he (but few others) called comic novels. His rude message—guess what, folks, the American Dream is a scam—wasn’t too  popular either. A provocateur at heart,  he was happiest swimming against the tide.

Not until after the Second World War, in that post-A-bomb, Dr. Strangelove era, did West’s brand of nightmare humor find an appreciative audience. His novels were first collected in 1957 by Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, and the Library of America would follow some forty years later  by adding his complete works to its canon of classic American literature.  As Number 93, he was the first Jewish writer enshrined in an elite pantheon that includes Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Their short lives necessarily  leave open the question of what else they might have done.  McKenney    missed turning forty in the year 1953 and seeing one of the all-time marvelous musicals,  Wonderful Town, based on her own story. West never got to enjoy the rewards that fall to renowned writers.

Their marriage has been called a romance by romantics, a tragedy by those who dote on reasonably  happy endings.  As we shall see, it was both—and neither.  Mr. and Mrs. West were not a Bonnie-and-Clyde jalopy couple, although to a man with West’s outlaw  personality  anybody on a crime spree could not be all bad. In Westian parlance, their story had a twisteroo punch line proving that anything can happen and sometimes does.

****

In the heat and dust of September the woods on Geigel Hill crackled  and  the amber  pastures dried  to a  dun-colored  brown.  Cool nights  in  his stone house, Nat planned a new post-hotel life of tranquility as he awaited October’s frost. He was going to buy a hunting dog and a shotgun, because this was Pennsylvania where people went out and killed  things to eat.  He would be a  gentleman farmer, who worked on his  books and tended his home and hearth.  With these seductive thoughts in mind, he had taken the first step before leaving the Coast when, high on  writerly exhilaration,  he had mailed his resignation to the hotel.  As he  told  Josie Herbst, he was a bit nervous because dollars  did not grow on trees but he was “going to take a chance.”

By quitting his job,  he raised the blood pressure of his  entire  family…who  warned that he was making a terrible mistake.  Everyone issued predictions of disaster. Undeterred, Nat bought a dog.

As Miss Lonelyhearts continued to gain   attention, he was  finally being  noticed as a writer.

****

Every once in a while   Eileen  wondered  why she had left Cleveland,  and there were moments when she felt  homesick for the sight of her father sitting contentedly  on the porch with his Saturday Evening Post.  But she never seriously thought of going  back,  not for a million dollars.  In New York she studied Picassos at the Museum of Modern Art, gorged on  gooey  pecan rolls at the Jumble Shop on Eighth Street,   dug into big, free, platters of whatever was most expensive  on dates at  the Brevoort  Hotel (on Fifth Avenue where at that very moment Nathanael West was packing in preparation for his departure to Hollywood).

The April  sun  warmed  the sky above Gay Street  and  the wisteria   around back  blazed  with  mauve blossoms.  By summer the patch of  garden  looked  picture-perfect,   blooming just as   magically  as  the landlord    had promised,  probably the only honest  thing he had ever said to them. Occasionally she and Ruth  threw    parties there, although  before the guests arrived   Eileen had to trim  the bathroom fungus with her manicure scissors.

From Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney by Marion Meade. Copyright c 2009 by Marion  Meade

Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. Lonelyhearts presents  a detailed picture of literary life during the 1930s.   How did the calamities  of the Great Depression affect  Nathanael West? Ruth McKenney?  How might their books have been received differently   in a more prosperous America?

2. What motivated the McKenney sisters to  leave Ohio for a life in New York City? Compare  Eileen and Ruth to the four adventurous friends  in  Sex and the City.

3. Like the author himself, West’s characters mostly came from privileged  upbringings.  In other Depression-era novels (Steinbeck’s  The Grapes of Wrath and Buck’s The Good Earth) the central characters grapple  with extreme poverty.   Discuss the differences and similarities  in how the various  characters coped with adversity.

4. The country was in enormous trouble in the Thirties.  Radical-minded  writers like Ruth McKenney sought solutions by joining the Communist Party. Eileen,  while sympathetic, did not join.  West strongly disliked Communism, which he called  “an ointment” like Vaseline jelly. What did he mean?

5. Nathanael West joked that his  novels went straight  from the printer to drugstore discount racks.  Why did  classics like  Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust fail to attract a readership in the 1930s?

6.  In Hollywood West determined to master  the craft of screenwriting. What’s more, he quickly  adapted to the  Southern California lifestyle. Why did  he have so few problems adjusting?