The Day of the Locust

"To me this is the quintessential LA novel. It’s about the film industry in its heyday. What makes it Western is that it’s set in the West, and it’s all about this idea of possibility. It’s about all these people uprooting themselves and the Hollywood dream they were sold. This book is where the name Homer Simpson comes from: He’s an everyman character who moves out from Nebraska. It’s hilarious and macabre, and it’s so modern in its tone and cadence. Just the prose, the style, the observations are very modern for 1939. As a side note, I’m pretty sure Nathanael West was killed [aged 37] in a car accident driving to F Scott Fitzgerald’s funeral. Oh yes. If anything, it’s spread like a rash. There is so much savagery involved in any dream that sells fame, which is something that obviously doesn’t happen to everybody. Hollywood is a tough place. I went there as a young writer in my twenties and optioned a couple of projects, but really got my ass kicked around town and found it to be not a real positive experience. It was a shark tank compared to any other industry I’ve ever worked in, and I’ve worked in radio, literature, in advertising. It’s just so competitive."