In these two modern fables Nathanael West presents a powerful indictment of the brutal, inhuman world of 1930s America. When, in MISS LONELYHEARTS, a cynical, hard-drinking hack takes on his newspaper's agony column he thinks of it as something of ajoke. But when the letters of despair come flooding in he realises that it is he who is the victim of the joke. Haunted by the human misery he encounters, his fragile hold on reality starts to slip away. In A COOL MILLION Lem Pitkin is the hapless young hero chasing the American dream of success and wealth, but instead discovering the very darkest corners of human life. Together these two fables present a powerful indictment of 1930s America.