American Superrealism: Nathanael West and the Politics of Representation in the 1930s (Wisconsin Project on American Writers)

ISBN: 0299157008

Author: Veitch, Jonathan

Condition: New

Nathanael West has been hailed as an apocalyptic writer, a writer on the left, and a precursor to postmodernism. But until now no critic has succeeded in fully engaging Wests distinctive method of negation. In American Superrealism, Jonathan Veitch examines Wests letters, short stories, screenplays and novels-some of which are discussed here for the first time-as well as Wests collaboration with William Carlos Williams during their tenure as the editors of Contact. Locating West in a lively, American avant-garde tradition that stretches from Marcel Duchamp to Andy Warhol, Veitch explores the possibilities and limitations of dada and surrealism-the use of readymades, scatalogical humor, human machines, exquisite corpses-as modes of social criticism. American Superrealism offers what is surely the definitive study of West, as well as a provocative analysis that reveals the issue of representation as the central concern of Depression-era America.