West's first novel, it presents a young man's immature and cynical search for meaning in a series of dreamlike encounters inside the entrails of the Trojan Horse. Balso, the protagonist, comes across the Trojan Horse in the tall grass around Troy and promptly seeks a way to get in: 'the mouth was beyond his reach, the navel provided a cul-de-sac, and so, forgetting his dignity, he approached the last. O Anus Mirabilis!'

Nathanael West (born Nathan Weinstein; October 17, 1903 - December 22, 1940) was an American author and screenwriter. He is remembered for two darkly satirical novels: Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and The Day of the Locust (1939), set respectively in the newspaper and Hollywood film industries.