Nathanael West

An American author, screenwriter, and satirist, he is particularly known for such novels as Miss Lonelyhearts and A Cool Million. His 1939 work, The Day of the Locust, is set in Great Depression-era Hollywood and was ranked by the Modern Library as one of the 100 Best English-Language Novels of the Twentieth Century.

He was a poor student who earned admission to Tufts College only by producing false high school academic records. He later used another student's Tufts transcript to gain admission to Brown University.

He was born in New York City to Ashkenazi Jewish parents. He married Eileen McKenney in 1940.

He worked on the script for the Alfred Hitchcock film, Suspicion.