"A horselaugh at a world that is too ugly and bitter to be dealt with in any other way." - The New York Times
"Scenes of extraordinary power." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Los Angeles has been the subject of, and setting for, many fine novels yet The Day of the Locust still feels like the single best-achieved piece of fiction the city has inspired." - The Los Angeles Times
"By applying the magpie aesthetics of Surrealism and T.S. Eliot to the 'American Grain,' by delving into the popular culture and emerging not with surrender or refusal but a razor-cool critique, West became the great precursor to Heller, Pynchon, Philip K. Dick, George Saunders, and so much else." - Jonathan Lethem
"It's brilliant, savage and arresting - a truly good novel." - Dorothy Parker
"This is the Hollywood that needs telling about ... I got a kick out of it!" - Dashiell Hammett
"This is the sleazy side of Hollywood. The wouldbes, the neverwases, the hopefuls, and the pretenders ... the shams, the deceits and the lies by which they live. All are here ... it packs a knockout punch." - The Chicago Tribune
"[West's] novels say more about the way we live now - and the things that brought us to our present pass - than any other work of fiction I can think of." - The New Yorker