Tomorrow is the big day--Book Launch Party
Thank you for the kind words and look forward to it.
A reminder. 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. / Thurs. Dec. 8
LA Press Club is at 4773 Hollywood Blvd.
Corner of Hollywood Blvd. and N. Berendo Street
Across from Barnsdall Art Park/
Sign outside Center for Inquiry
FREE PARKING behind building /
Turn into N. Berendo St.
See you there. Joe.
Martin Chilton, Digital Culture Editor
at The Telegraph in London
offered a rave review today
of my new biography
ALIVE INSIDE THE WRECK.
Chilton says, "...the book serves as a vibrant reminder of a talened and somewhat neglected author. West's wonderfully imaginative and slightly disturbed books are still in print--even in eBook editions--and hopefully Woodward's interesting account will persuade people to try the novels."
The Telegraph Read the full review here.
The Book / The Playlist
@
Largehearted Boy
http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2011/11/book_notes_josh_13.html
ALIVE INSIDE THE WRECK
FEATURED
BOOK-OF-THE-WEEK
November 13, 2011
@
LitFest Magazine
A great early review of the book.
Read below.
http://www.litfestmagazine.com/2011/11/featured-book-of-week-november-13-2011.html
Friends and Family -- Readers All!
You're cordially invited to...
My Book Launch Party in Hollywood
Hope you can join us and help celebrate the birth of this book and the great Nathanael West
You are invited to join OR Books and the LA Review of Books to toast the launch of Joe Woodward's Alive Inside the Wreck: A Biography of Nathanael West, December 8th, 7-9pm at the Los Angeles Press Club.
This is OR Books' first LA book party; we're thrilled to be partnering with the LA Review of Books to celebrate the past and present of LA literary culture with a spotlight on Messrs. West and Woodward.
Please find the invitation with full details attached. RSVP by Nov. 15. Drinks will be served. Hope you can make it.
All the best,
Fern Diaz
Publicity Manager
OR Books publicity@orbooks.com
Miss Lonelyhearts Has a Religious Experience
Chapter 15
The final chapter.
"After a long night and morning, towards noon, Miss Lonelyhearts welcomed the arrival of fever. It promised heat and mentally unmotivated violence. The promise was soon fulfilled; the rock became a furnace."
"He fastened his eyes on the Christ that hung on the wall opposite his bed. As he stared at it, it became a bright fly, spinning with quick grace on a background of blood velvet sprinkled with tiny nerve stars."
"Christ is life and light."
"The room was full of grace. A sweet, clean grace, not washed clean, but clean as the innersides of the inner petals of a newly forced rosebud."
"He immediately began to plan a new life and his future conduct as Miss Lonelyhearts. He submitted drafts of his column to God and God approved them. God approved his every thought."
"Suddenly the doorbell rang. He climbed out of bed and went into the hall to see who was coming. It was Doyle, the cripple, and he was slowly working his way up the stairs."
What happens next is the end, of the end, of the novel. What happens next is the mental traffic accident of "Desperate," "Harold S. Catholic-mother," "Broken-hearted," "Broad-shoulders," "Sick-of-it-al," "Disillusioned-with-tubercular-husband."
The novel ends in its own sad beauty.
There is no other Nathanael West.
Miss Lonelyhearts and the Party Dress
Chapter 14
The end is near. It begins with Betty. She leaves the party and is met by Miss L. at the elevator.
"She had on a light-blue dress that was very much a party dress. She dressed for things, he realized."
"Won't you have a soda, please? he begged. The party dress had given his simplified mind its cue and he delighted in the boy-and-girl argument that followed."
"I've quit the Miss Lonelyhearts job. I haven't been in the office in almost a week."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to look for a job in an advertising agency."
"He was not deliberately lying. He was only trying to say what she wanted to hear. The party dress was so gay and charming, light blue with a frothy lace collar flecked with pink, like the collar of her soda."
"She began to talk under her sobs. She was pregnant. She was going to have a baby."
"He begged the party dress to marry him, saying all the things it expected to hear, all the things that went with strawberry sodas and farms in Connecticut. He was just what the party dress wanted him to be: simple and sweet, whimsical and poetic, a trifle collegiate yet very masculine."
"She agreed to have the child."
"When her door closed behind him, he smiled. The rock had been thoroughly tested and had been found perfect. He had only to climb aboard the bed again."
The final chapter awaits!
October 17, 1903
R.I.P.
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