Miss Lonelyhearts

Miss Lonelyhearts is Nathanael West's first great novel. In the story, Miss Lonelyhearts is a un-named male newspaper columist writing an advice column which is viewed by the newspaper as a joke. As Miss Lonelyhearts reads the letters from the desperate writers he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep depression.

Miss Lonelyhearts tries several approaches as a way out of this depression (including obsessive religion, escaping to the country, and sex) but only comes out more confused. Miss Lonelyhearts eventually corresponds with a reader unhappily married to a man with a slight physical disability. This leads to Miss Lonelyhearts having an affair with the woman. In the last scene he confronts her husband after having a religious experience. The husband thinks Miss Lonelyhearts is attacking him and pulls out a gun, shooting Miss Lonelyhearts. They both fall down a flight of stairs and die.