The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West
The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West
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The Day of the Locust

Author: Nathanael West

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Unabridged: 5 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/24/2018

Synopsis

Admired by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, and Dashiell Hammett, and hailed as one of the best one hundred English-language novels by Time magazine, The Day of the Locust continues to influence American writers, artists, and culture. Bob Dylan wrote the classic song “Day of the Locusts” in homage, and Matt Groening’s Homer Simpson is named after one of its characters. No novel more perfectly captures the nuttier side of Hollywood. Here the lens is turned on its fringes—actors out of work, film extras with big dreams, and parents lining their children up for small roles. But it’s the bit actress Faye Greener who steals the spotlight with her wildly convoluted dreams of stardom: “I’m going to be a star some day—if I’m not I’ll commit suicide.”

About Nathanael West

Nathanael West (1903–1940)—novelist, screenwriter, playwright—was one of the most gifted and original writers of his generation, a comic artist whose insight into the brutalities of modern life would prove prophetic. He is famous for two masterpieces, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust. He died in a car crash in 1940, while returning to Los Angeles to attend the funeral of his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald.

About Grover Gardner

Grover Gardner is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Fabian on September 09, 2020

Miss Lonelyhearts, a novella that made the "1001 Books You Must Read" list, is a type of companion piece to Salinger's maudlin, crude, symbolic works about humanity. It is about an advice columnist who thinks he is a demi god, who ignores the troubles of everyone around him to the point of satire, w......more

Goodreads review by Steve on March 29, 2013

To be honest, I was expecting something lighter. Here was the hook: Miss Lonelyhearts, an advice columnist in the early 30’s, is really a man. Sounds like a role for Jimmy Stewart at his gosh-darned chirpiest, doesn’t it? But the first few pages put a different image in mind – it was Pottersville wi......more

Goodreads review by Tosh on March 10, 2008

Do you know what's wrong with this New Direction edition of West's most famous two little novels? Nothing. It's a perfect book. And it's a work that never gets old. The ultimate Hollywood nove (Day of the...)l that is almost spiritual. West got it right away and very few could match his greatness or......more

Goodreads review by Amanda on December 16, 2015

Unsettling, harsh, and wildly inappropriate mixed with a blandness that could put a reader to sleep in seconds. This book has weighed on my mind in a way others haven’t in a while. My finger hovered above the two and four stars button far too long due to my struggle with content versus writing style......more

Goodreads review by Jimmy on September 28, 2009

If one moral prevails throughout the two novels that Nathanael West has become famous for, it would probably be that, even in the dreariest of times, people can find salvation or refuge from suffering through art. At least this is what Miss Lonelyheart's boss, Mr. Shrike informs him of as a substitu......more

Quotes

“This is the Hollywood that needs telling about. It’s a fine job. I got a kick out of it.” Dashiell Hammett, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“It’s brilliant, savage, and arresting—a truly good novel.” Dorothy Parker, New York Times bestselling author

“West’s humor is of course not at the expense of the victim. It is a horselaugh at a world that is too ugly and bitter to be dealt with in any other way.” New York Times

“Los Angeles has been the subject of, and setting for, many fine novels, yet The Day of the Locust still feels like the single best-achieved piece of fiction the city has inspired.” Los Angeles Times

“West’s Day of the Locust, a sun-blazed Polaroid of its time, seems permanently oracular.” Jonathan Lethem, award–winning author of Motherless Brooklyn

“Narrator Grover Gardner expertly portrays a wide cast of characters who live on the margins of 1930s Hollywood in this prescient novel…Listeners will both chuckle and grimace at Gardner’s uncanny ability to mine the humor, pathos, and callousness of characters who range from shrewd aspiring actress Faye Greener to socially awkward Midwestern accountant Homer Simpson and obnoxious child actor Adore Loomis. The story is presented in vignettes, moving from one overlapping set of characters to another until a fuller picture emerges of those who see themselves as being cheated out of a secure and loving future.” AudioFile

Awards

  • Time Magazine's Best 100 English-Language Novels from 1923–2005
  • New York Times Pick
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