There is a scene early on in Nathanael West’s satirical 1933 novella Miss Lonelyheartsthat reeks of depression, despair, and genius. It’s hard to forget. The protagonist is a lovelorn advice columnist for a newspaper in New York City who receives a letter from a teenage girl who describes herself as having the makings of a beauty, with a slender figure that many rave about, but she bitterly notes she has never had a date. Can it be, she asks, because she has no nose?
BIDEN’S LAST HURRAH AGAINST RUSSIA AND PUTINFrustration escalates for the the lame duck president