Read ‘Miss Lonelyhearts’ for Valentine’s Day

Some books make you, some books break you. For me, anything over 60,000 words is usually a deal breaker in the latter category. I’m a dreadfully slow reader of fiction—“staring at marked slices of wood for hours while hallucinating vividly” (as some dude on Reddit once put it) takes a lot of bandwidth. This is why, coming in at a lean and mean 28,000, Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts has always had a spot on my mental bookshelf.

But it’s not just the metrics–it’s the message. It starts with this: The titular character is a disillusioned young man and newspaper advice columnist who writes under the nom de plume Miss Lonelyhearts and, burdened by the suffering of his readers and his own existential despair, spirals into a crisis of faith, futility, and self-destruction. Given the letters to the editor I receive in my news gig, you can see how I relate. I don’t print them all and rarely reply, but I offer this little missive for all the lonelyhearts out there who have time to waste writing me, often regarding the sheer scale of human suffering.

The facile take would be to quote Miss Lonelyhearts:

“Art Is a Way Out. Do not let life overwhelm you. When the old paths are choked with the débris of failure, look for newer and fresher paths. Art is just such a path. Art is distilled from suffering.”

But in the book’s context, this is a sardonic and hollow bromide. Like a love letter from ChatGPT—the words look right, but there’s nothing behind them. Some other advice lurks in West’s heart-shaped box but, hey, wait, I got a new complaint…

On Background

Probably because Miss Lonelyhearts and I are in the same racket, I’ve found references to him, whispered and murmured throughout my work. Sometimes obliquely, sometimes explicitly—as in this bit from the Petaluma Argus-Courier, dated April 28, 1999:

I am not Ms. Lonely Hearts, so quit it with the letters, you weirdos. And no, “Parched-In-Petaluma,” you shouldn’t drink from the slough. Your Nietzschean maxim (”That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”) should have the tag “but it will give you dysentery” appended to it. I advise you to call the Sonoma County Mental Health Services Division at 569-4900.

Later, Miss Lonelyhearts cameoed in my Nomaville column in the Sonoma Valley Sun, which must’ve run sometime between 2006 and 2009, when I was hired and fired:

Those who actually know me, however, are likely to suggest the novellas Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, both penned by Nathanael West in 1933 and 1939, respectively. The first recounts a newspaperman’s self-sacrifice in his “advice for the lovelorn” column; the other is a seamy vivisection of the moribund underbelly of Hollywood’s aspirant class. Both novellas wove their wicked poetry into my DNA (and, later, my career) when I discovered them paired in a single volume published by New Directions in 1969.

I was 14 years old, teetering on becoming a high school dropout and lounging in a loft over my parents’ garage, where they kept the overflow of their library. There, I’d sneak cigarettes, paint anti-authoritarian murals on the walls, and attempt seductions of girls with dyed-black hair. The book’s cover—a crowd scene rendered in black and white and overlaid with a fractured grey heart—caught my eye, as did the tiny yellow “used” sticker on its spine.

A few hours later, I had inhaled the dark, wry tales of writerly dissipation and the degradation that accompanies outsized ambition. West’s work was much-needed mental nutrition for a media diet otherwise larded with ‘80s pop culture.

In the said 80s, that particular paperback edition was ubiquitous in Sonoma County’s used bookstores, thanks, I presume, to the required reading in some English classes at Sonoma State. My parents’ copy bore telltale marginalia, a skeleton key in my father’s hand, unlocking the novel’s Christ symbology for me. Having been raised a godless heathen, I would have missed this otherwise.

I also lacked any ornithological knowledge, so it took me nearly 40 years to realize that Miss Lonelyhearts’ editor and chief tormentor, Shrike, wasn’t just an aptly shrill-sounding name. Shrike is a bird—the “loggerhead” variety (Lanius ludovicianus), also known as the “butcherbird,” or, more tellingly, the “crucifix bird” because it impales its prey on thorns. Pretty fucking on the nose there, Nate. But well played, nonetheless.

Your Priceless Advice

These days, the unsolicited advice industry is bigger than ever, led by influencers offering life hacks on everything from gut health to morning routines to the secret of happiness (spoiler: it’s usually supplements). Once upon a time, this business was handled by twin sisters who didn’t speak to each other: Dear Abby and Ann Landers, the dueling agony aunts of a bygone era. Now, advice is crowdsourced, democratized, and, more often than not, monetized.

When faced with the enormity and absurdity of suffering, it’s no wonder people turn to stoicism and ironic detachment. Don’t. Empathy, for all its virtues, is one of the defining factors of being human and the one that leads to the most overwhelm. Lean into it. It’s not a hole, it’s a tunnel. Even the Mayo Clinic says it’ll improve your heart health: You may not find that you love humanity for all its evils and idiocies, but, like Miss Lonelyhearts, you will find a way to forgive it.

Happy Valentine’s Day! With Love, DH

The novella…

The movie…

The made for TV movie…