Miss Lonelyhearts is a novella by Nathanael West. It is about a male
newspaper advice columnist who provides advice to lonesome people who
becomes so affected by their desperate letters that he spirals into
depression, drinking, and ill-considered sexual affairs, which leads to
his downfall. In the story, Miss Lonelyhearts is the pseudonym for an
unnamed male newspaper columnist writing an advice column for the
lovelorn and lonesome, a duty that the other newspaper staff consider to
be a joke. As Miss Lonelyhearts reads letters from desperate New
Yorkers, he feels terribly burdened and falls into a cycle of deep
depression, accompanied by heavy drinking and occasional bar fights. He
is also the victim of the pranks and cynical advice of Shrike, his
feature editor at the newspaper.