Joe Woodward is the author of the well-received Alive Inside the Wreck: A Biography of Nathanael West.

"In this fresh, elegant biography by Joe Woodward--the first in four decades--West comes alive, a strange young man on the prowl, a crazy fool, a fantasist."  JAY PARINI, Author of The Last Station and editor of The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature

"Joe Woodward gives us an invaluable guide to the difficult life of the mysterious and great Nathanael West.  While tracking the sources and struggles of West's writing, Alive Inside the Wreck marvelously evokes the moment when his singular novels made their indelible mark on a new American literature."  HONOR MOORE, Author of The Bishop's Daughter

"Overall, the book serves as a vibrant reminder of a talented and somewhat neglected author.  West's wonderfully imaginative and slightly disturbed books are still in print--even in eBook editions--and hopefully Woodward's interesting account will persuade people to try the novels. As Dorothy Parker said: "Wildly funny, desperately sad, brutal and kind, furious and patient, there was no other like Nathanael West."   MARTIN CHILTON, Review in The Telegraph

"It's rare that the literary critic, "showing a little plumage," to borrow a phrase from James Wood, knows when to remove himself from the text under discussion.  Woodward's writing here dispenses with any airy rhetoric, cutting sharply to bone in telegraphic sentences and short chapters."  Review in Biblioklept