Guide Note:
The Day of the Locust is a novel by American author Nathanael West. Written against the conflicting backdrops of the Great Depression and the early film industry boom in Los Angeles in the late 1930's, it is widely considered to be one of the best novels about Hollywood ever written. As they are all haunted and consumed by the desperation of the industry and their own fading dreams, the book's characters have become stereotypes of Hollywood even today: the aspiring set painter, the self-obsessed starlet, the aging vaudevillian, the big-time producer, and other characters from the fringes of Hollywood.
Fast Facts:
- Author: Nathanael West
- Date of Publication: May 16, 1939
- Publisher: Random House
- Themes: Alienation, the death of innocence
- Features prominent use of grotesque imagery
- Largely ignored and unread upon original publication
- West's fourth and final novel
- Can be considered a novella, or short novel
- Made into the 1975 John Schlesinger film starring Donald Sutherland and Karen Black
- Features a character named Homer Simpson, but did not inspire the famous Simpsons character
