He did not practice his religion, and Kapstein said that West was not only "unjewish" but also "unmoral," adding, "I find no moral stance whatever in his writing." Another friend, John Sanford (who was born Julian Shapiro), maintained that West "had about as much faith as an ear of corn." Yet despite his lack of religious conviction, West was fascinated by both the Jewish and Catholic religions. Wells Root, a longtime friend, recalled that West read widely about religion, from the earliest church history to the present. West was similarly ambivalent about sex. He went from loose living in his younger days to being disturbed by the lack of morals in Hollywood in his later days. In some ways he seemed to be quite oldfashioned; he held to a double standard, believing that men were free to do what they wished but that women should do what society expected of them. Yet he consciously set out to shock his readers: Balso Snell in
The Dream Life of Balso Snell is obsessed with sex; Betty in
Miss Lonelyhearts is raped and brutalized; another Betty is raped and forced to work as a prostitute in
A Cool Million.
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