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208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1933
Dear Miss Lonelyhearts--
I am sixteen years old now and I dont know what to do and would appreciate it if you could tell me what to do. When I was a little girl it was not so bad because I got used to the kids on the block makeing fun of me, but now I would like to have boy friends like the other girls and go out on Saturday nites, but no boy will take me because I was born without a nose--although I am a good dancer and have a nice shape and my father buys me pretty clothes.
I sit and look at myself all day and cry. I have a big hole in the middle of my face that scares people even myself so I cant blame the boys for not wanting to take me out. My mother loves me, but she crys terrible when she looks at me.
What did I do to deserve such a terrible bad fate? Even if I did do some bad things I didnt do any before I was a year old and I was born this way. I asked Papa and he says he doesnt know, but that maybe I did something in the other world before I was born or that maybe I was being punished for his sins. I dont believe that because he is a very nice man. Ought I commit suicide?
Sincerely yours,
Desperate
"You are plunging into a world of misery and suffering, peopled by creatures who are strangers to everything but disease and policemen. Harried by one, they are hurried by the other..."
"Americans have dissipated their radical energy in an orgy of stone breaking. In their few years they have broken more stones than did centuries of Egyptians. And they have done their work hysterically, desperately, almost as if they knew that the stones would some day break them."
At college, and perhaps for a year afterwards, they had believed in literature, had believed in Beauty and in personal expression as an absolute end. When they lost this belief, they lost everything. Money and fame meant nothing to them. They were not worldly men.
I once spent three years putting together a book of letters: (Letters to Judy: What Kids Wish They Could Tell You) from my readers. It was emotionally draining, not just because I tried to tie them together with autobiographical material, but because of the letters themselves. At one point I had to go to a therapist to find out how I could keep writing fiction while being responsible (and responsive) to my readers. I was so involved with a couple of kids (I wanted to save them) that the therapist had to teach me how to step back while still being there for them. Over the years there have been seven kids who started to write to me at age twelve--kids with tough lives--who still write to me today and they're in their twenties and thirties now. Most of them are okay. Some are parents. I still try to answer the really serious letters myself.
“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.”
Miss Lonelyhearts, Nathanael West