Miss Lonelyhearts. Illustrated

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West is a powerful and unsettling modernist novel that exposes the despair hidden beneath the surface of American life during the Great Depression. Written in a stark, economical style, the book is both a work of social criticism and a bleak parable of faith, suffering, and disillusionment. The story follows an unnamed newspaper columnist known only as "Miss Lonelyhearts, " who is assigned to write advice to desperate readers pouring out their sorrows in letters.
At first, he treats the task as routine, but the sheer weight of human misery-poverty, broken marriages, abuse, and hopelessness-begins to overwhelm him. Struggling with cynicism, depression, and his own inability to offer real comfort, he spirals into a crisis of faith and identity. Caught between mocking detachment and a genuine desire to save those who confide in him, Miss Lonelyhearts becomes a tragic figure, seeking redemption in a world that offers little but cruelty and emptiness.
His interactions with cynical colleagues, manipulative friends, and vulnerable readers deepen the novel's exploration of the human need for compassion and the near impossibility of providing it. Both darkly comic and profoundly tragic, Miss Lonelyhearts captures West's sharp critique of American society and its failure to address human suffering. Today, it stands as one of the most haunting and influential American novels of the 20th century-a compact masterpiece that confronts despair with unflinching honesty.