I'm pleased (actually beside myself) to report that Jay Parini, the noted writer and critic and editor of both The Norton Anthology of Autobiography and The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature has written a beautiful review in the February 2012 issue of Literary Review, London.
Jay Parini says of ALIVE INSIDE THE WRECK:
“In this fresh, elegant biography by Joe Woodward—the first in four decades—West comes alive, a strange young man on the prowl, a crazy fool, a fantasist.
“Alive Inside the Wreck seems to imitate, to a degree, the prose of West, with its short sentences and its neon-lit realism…Some of the criticism on display is quite remarkable, as when Woodward describes The Day of the Locust as “ a novel of displacement, of displaced people.
“This is a remarkably good and succinct biography, well worth reading. It adds considerably to our understanding of West, taking on the fabled machinery of Hollywood itself, which often seems more like a troubled state of mind than an actual place or industry.”
To read the full review online go to the Literary Review.
Also, for recent news on the book you can go to www.orbooks.com.
My great thanks. Long live Nathanael West (well his novels, anyway).

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