[McMURTRY, Larry (1936-2021), his copy]. WEST, Nathanael (1903-1940). A Cool Million. The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin. New York: Covici Friede, 1934. FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED BY WEST on front free endpaper. West?s third novel is a satire of the eternal optimism found in the work of Horatio Alger. ?West?s particular kind of joking in A Cool Million combined his reading in satiric traditions with the brutal comedy of American burlesque? (Jay West, Nathanael West: The Art of His Life, 1970, p. 237). In Freudenberger and Stein?s Bibliostyle: How We Live at Home with Books (2019), McMurtry talks of not burdening his heirs with his 30,000-book library at his home in Archer City but there were a select few that he would never sell: ?Nathanael West?s four novels would be ones I wouldn?t part with: The Dream Life of Balso Snell; Miss Lonelyhearts; A Cool Million: The Dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin; and The Day of the Locust. Other than those volumes, my library is, you might say, ?a vibrant intellectual ecosystem??. White 4.