 After an estrangement, Lowry followed Jan to New York City where, almost incoherent after an alcohol-induced breakdown, he checked into Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in 1936 – experiences which later became the basis of his novella "Lunar Caustic".When the authorities began to take notice of him, he fled to avoid deportation and then went to Hollywood, where he tried screenwriting.At about that time he began writing "Under the Volcano".