So there are times when it just feels right to be reminded how shitty the world can be. Modern readers love to read about suffering almost as much as modern writers love to write about it, but neither tend to have a stomach for unmitigated cynicism. The role of pessimism in fiction these days is as a backdrop against which the moral of the story shines, however feebly. Ann Lamott, in her seminal instruction manual Bird by Bird (which, partly by way of apology to Miss Lamott, I recommend to any aspiring writer) actually has the gall to ask why somebody who does not believe in the underlying good of humanity should bother writing at all. Should Lamott and an author like Nathanael West have ever crossed paths, I’d imagine the latter might ask why someone who does not believe in the underlying good of humanity should bother with anything but writing.
Which leads me, conveniently enough, West’s novella Miss Lonelyhearts, a fifty-eight page descent into Depression-era New York as seen through the eyes of the eponymous advice columnist known only to the readers by his humiliating nom de plume. In a lot of respects it’s darker than West’s later and better known novella Day of the Locust, largely considered the best novel about Hollywood ever written. We all know the quest for fame and riches is soul-eviscerating. But Miss Lonelyhearts surrenders the possibility of fame via its protagonist’s literal and ethical anonymity.
On the surface, it looks like the ingredients are all laid out for a nice Bukowski smoothie: Frustrated, chain-smoking wordsmith stuck in a job he’d rather not have? Check. Liquor by the bucketful? Double check! Frenzied, oversexed women after the hero’s soul? And how! You would think that all West would have to do is switch on the blender. But this isn’t that kind of book. Check out some of Miss Lonelyhearts’ mail:
“Dear Miss Lonelyhearts-
I am sixteen years old and I don’t know what to do and would appreciate it
if you could tell me what to do…I would like to have boy friends like the
other girls and go out on Saturday nites, but no boy will take me because I
was born without a nose – although I am a good dance and have a nice shape
and my father buys me pretty clothes…I asked Papa and he said that…maybe I
was being punished for his sins. I don’t believe that because he is a very
nice man. Ought I commit suicide?”
Or, on the end of the spectrum:
“Dear Miss Lonelyhearts-
I am in such pain I don’t know what to do sometimes I think I will kill
myself my kidneys hurt so much. My husband thinks no woman can be a good
catholic and not have children irregardless of the pain…I have 7 children in
12 years and ever since the last 2 I have been so sick. I was operatored on
twice and my husband promised no more children on the doctors advice as he
said I might die but when I got back from the hospital he broke his promise
and now I am going to have a baby and I don’t think I can stand it my
kidneys hurt so much…I can’t have an abortion on account of being a catholic
and my husband so religious. I cry all the time it hurts so much and I don’t
know what to do.”
There are more. Needless to say, Miss Lonelyhearts’ paper, the New York Post-Dispatch does not publish these letters and that Miss Lonelyhearts is not required to answer them. All he’s required to do is shovel through them, day after day, all the while insisting to his faithful readers that “life is worth living.” Of course it isn’t long at all before Miss Lonelyhearts begins behaving as atrociously as any depraved Gonzo journalist or proto-Corso type we see wandering through twentieth century literature. If anything, West edges towards Brett Eaton Ellis in terms of sheer savagery. Before the novel is through, Miss Lonelyhearts puts an elderly stranger in a hammerlock, beats a woman with his fists for making sexual advances on him, and throws her crippled husband down a flight of stairs (to be fair, he takes the tumble with him and it is not at all clear whether either man survives). And yet Miss Lonelyhearts is no Patrick Bateman. He cares. God, he cares. And it’s carving out his insides.
It would be easy to say something along the lines of “It’s been seventy years since this book was published, but look! This could have been written today!” But that wouldn’t really be true. We don’t write books like this anymore. For one thing, novellas aren’t such a hot commodity these days, mostly because they are a losing proposition from the perspective of their authors. Novels are easier to sell. Short stories are easier to publish. When they do show up on our radar they tend to either be atmospheric affairs like Stewart O’Nan’s Last Night at the Lobster or Hard SF meditations like Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum’s True Names. Not the kind of thing you pick up unless you’re already looking for it.
But a contemporary Miss Lonelyhearts would have a bigger problem than its inconvenient page count. To be sure, modern consumers lap up books like A Long Way Gone, The Kite Runner, and We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed Along With Our Families. Memoirists like Mary Karr and pseudo-memoirists like James Frey also do well for themselves at the markets. In the realm of fiction, writers like Stieg Larsson and dominates our lust for violence, sex, and every conceivable combination thereof. Clearly, we like reading about murder, rape, genocide, drug addiction, and personality defects. We like living in a world in which such things are possible. Where we draw the line is living in a world where such things are likely or even certain. And if there’s one thing we can’t stand, it’s living in a world where these problems are our problem. It’s enough to drive us crazy. Without a doubt, it drives Miss Lonelyhearts to a fever pitch of psychoses and even though Nathanael West gives us every chance in the world to distance ourselves from his unforgivable behavior…we don’t. Passing out drunk rather than finishing the Miss Lonelyhearts column makes perfect sense. Even smacking around Faye Doyle feels earned in the moment. By the time we reach the penultimate scene, in which Miss Lonelyhearts fiancée Betty informs him that she is pregnant, nothing seems like a worse idea than bringing a child into the world through which Miss Lonelyhearts skulks.
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