John Fante Books

In retrospect, now that I'm ten years removed from the reading of Fante's novels, I view this one as the best. Much has been said of ASK THE DUST--some of it true, some of it blown ridiculously out of proportion--but this novel, slipping in under the radar and coming much later in his life, is darker, funnier, and less self-absorbed. It makes you wonder what he could have produced outside of the Hollywood screenwriting grind, during decades of literary inactivity. It's a melancholic work, and one can't help but sense the author's own discomfort with being cognizant of his own compromises.

Fantes characters are rarely heroic. They are flawed and often slightly ridiculous, but he writes in such a way that one cant help warming to them no matter what. In fantes world man is confused and irrational, struggling with catholic guilt and trying to make sense of an absurd world. Life is a tragic comedy in which the last laugh is very definitely on you. Although at times hilarious, at its core there is a lot of sadness, but what comes across most strongly is a warmth and compassion for his characters despite and maybee even because of their faults. His style overflows with energy and passion. There is a tremedous appetite for life. The book catches you up in its plot from page one and sweeps you along. This is an extremely enjoyable book, a strange and beautifully told story, profoundly moving and funny.

Fante's book about a Catholic Italian family and their relationships with each other is a beautifully crafted book. It reads like Bukowski only not as funny. There are some funny moments and some poignant ones as well. Fante has a great ear for dialogue and his narrator's role as the dutiful son is very well executed. I could picture these people as people I have known. The relationships between the father and his children and his wife are very complex, and each one is explored throughout the course of the novel. The bonding of the narrator with his father is a very original "coming of age" story, because the narrator is in his fifties. This is a highly recommended book.

I came across the hardcover first edition of this book at the library, which said that the writer of Chinatown had written the screenplay version for Francis Ford Coppola which was supposed to be his followup to The Godfather. Evidentally the movie was never made, but it does turn out that the same screenwriter has adapted Fante's other book, Dago Red, and is currently directing the film. That will be one to look out for.

The brotherhood of the grape consists of a group of men gathering at the Angelo Masso winery in San Elmo. There is Angelo himself, Cavallero, Zarlingo, Benedetti, Antrilli, Mascarini and Nicholas. During their meetings, they gamble, brawl and of course drink heavily. Nicholas Molise and his wife Maria brought up four children now in their fifties, Mario, Virgil, Stella and Henry, the latter being the narrator in Mr Fante's both tragic and funny tale. Nicholas is now 76 and he used to work as a contractor and he built many imposing buildings in San Elmo. A passionate man of Italian origin, the head of the family is described by Henry as "a judge, jury and executioner, Jehovah himself". He scorns his sons because, to his bitter disappointment, none of them became a stonemason. And now Nick pesters Henry to join him in an absurd project of building of a smokehouse up in the Sierra mountains...
It is both the funny and sad tale of a son watching his father age, wait, mark time and become increasingly lonelier. But there is anger too in Henry's memories when he remembers his father's ignorance, he who kept books out of Henry's range, despised them, ignored them. His ranting, threats, greed, bullying and gambling are hard to forget. Henry can't but despise his father's old bones and skin, his wine-soaked oldness, his sinful and sodden friends. He can barely contain his anger at being trapped on an absurd safari into the mountains because of his father's vanity, to prove himself he is still "a hotshot stonemason". Yet Henry is finally the only son who stands by his father's side as his final moment approaches...
The novel is brimming with love, violence, death, religion and also plenty of humour because the author's prose is honest, evocative and intimate.

Well, so far, this was the first book I have read of John Fante's and I absolutely loved it. I finished it only a week ago and the images still stick with me pretty well. My first thought after finishing the book, was that I liked the fact that he used a simplistic style in his writing. There wasn't anything fancy or over-elaborate about it. It just comes from the gut. I don't want to ruin the book for anyone, so I'll avoid any heavy plot details, however the book hit a few emotional nerves in me that related to the story.
The characters are very likeable. The father in the story especially stood out to me. He is a drunkard (who is sometimes unfaithful and abusive to his wife). He's the kind of guy you'd like to punch in the face, and then hug him afterwards. You just can't hate the guy, regardless of how imperfect and angry he is.

A highly recommended read.

Thank you Mrs. Fante for saving this piece and countless others of John Fante's work. It is so great to read Bandini after not having anything "new" for years. I have read the book twice in the 45 days I've had it. Bandini lives on! Bukowski said it best, "You should all read John Fante. That was one tough son-of-a-bitch!"

"being a writer I only live in the past and in thefuture"....arturo bandini says from THE BIG HUNGER....john fanteis alive again in my back room...he's been dead for years I know...but he is in my house now standing up shouting at me....he made me laugh and snicker first...then we got more drunk and he started in on a few stories that made me cry...john fante my old pal of stories is back...and we aren't finished yet reading them all...about half way...but I wanted somebody to know that he is with me now...THE BIG HUNGER a collection of short stories collected by Stephen Cooper...from the goldmine...

Until you've read "Jakie's Mother", a short story in the pages of The Big Hunger, you haven't experienced truth in our artform.

The stories of The Big Hunger are many and varied and show a number of different writing styles. This is a great book and one worth keeping.

C'est le premier livre que je lis de cet auteur et sûrement pas le dernier. C'est absolument superbe et par moment, ça ressemble à du Salinger.

Having read Fante's excellent "Ask the Dust," my heart skipped a beat when I saw this collection of letters at my local library. Recognizing at once Mencken's relationship to Arturo Bandini's literary hero, the "Great editor J.C. Hackmuth" who appears in Fante's LA stories, I lost no time in absorbing this collection.

Indeed, Fante did little to disguise his relationship with Mencken for his fiction, something which becomes apparent upon reading this volume. His early letters to Mencken are rife with ambition and emotional tumult, reminscent of Bandini's lugubrious musings in "Ask the Dust." Many times he adopts a tone of confessional, spilling his guts to Mencken, his putative mentor, laying bare all his prejudices, desires, and disillusions. It becomes clear that Fante has very few close friends, and that his family dominate his thoughts and feed his instabilities.

Mencken's responses are invariably curt and balanced. As if to avoid becoming entrenched in Fante's delirium (the two hadn't met in person, nor would they ever), Mencken's responses are terse but temperate - his words are encouraging, but eschew flattery. The young writer is obviously desperate for compliments, but Mencken never offers more than simple praise. Likewise, he reserves his vituperations for the subjects of his columns.

What's really most compelling about this collection is that it allows us an highly elucidated view of Fante's maturation as a writer and as a man. From his books it is difficult to discern his opinions of the political and social climate of era. But through his correspondence with Mencken, his allegiances are revealed.

Furthermore, given that the two men were basically glorified pen-pals (as I mentioned, they never met), it often turns out that they haven't much to discuss but politics and then-current events. The 1930's come alive in Fante's descriptions of writers' conventions, Hollywood, radio personalities, and political events. In his letters, he paints a very interesting picture of New Deal-era Socialism, albeit a decidedly negative one. Both he and Mencken are essentially apolitical, skeptical of both Fascism and Socialism, a fact which allows many very sharp aphorisms to be traded between the two men.

All in all, a very satisfying book, although short (under 200 pages). A bildungsroman of sorts, it sheds a great deal of light on the development of one of American literature's most underexposed talents.

Decided to give this a try b/c it was one of Bukowski's favorite books. Having read it, I can definitely see the influence there!
Arturo Bandini, the protagonist, is very well developed and the reader is able to sympathize with him.
The only part i didn't like is the ending (although it is in context with the historical period in which the book was written).....if you read it, you'll probably know what i mean

The protagonist has a very unique look on life that one does not really relate to well... he is however, a very interesting character. I liked this book and found it to be a good read.

As other reviewers have said, if you are a Bukowski fan, you have to read this book. After going through a series of books that were so dull I felt like I had anvils on my eyelids, I decided to break my no-buy and get this book. Life is too short to force yourself through a tedious story. ANYHOO...This is one of those books that you do not want to put down but you do anyway because you don't want the story to end. I won't go into the specifics because there are probably dozens of reviews that will break the whole story down piece by piece. It's engaging, honest, funny and heartbreaking. It has jump-started my OCD and I now I must own all of Fante's books, and I've since then donated all the snoozefests to the library.

The great Arturo Bandini! Book is much better than the movie! A must read and must have to any bookshelf!

A poor, aspiring young writer moves into a decaying, once-genteel roomimg house in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles. Periodically on the verge of starvation, he nevertheless enjoys the warm climate of the city set next to a desert, works on his writing and looks at the stars. The stars tell him not to despair - that he's part of something vibrant and glorious. One fateful day he happens to go into a Mexican restaurant. In a letter to his cousin Fante described what happened as a result of that casual decision. He fell in love with a girl "who loved someone else, who in turn despised her. Strange story of a beautiful Mexican girl who somehow didn't fit into modern life...."
The protagonist, Arturo Bandini, becomes obsessed with Camilla; and as he does so he goes through various stages of love: from shallow attraction to infatuation to compassionate love. At the beginning of the book he's completely self-centered. By the end of the book his love for the girl is almost wholly unselfish. This is especially moving, since he realizes after awhile that he means nothing to her and that she's just been using him all along to try to get close to another man. This bitter realization doesn't prevent him from moving heaven and earth to try to save her, even after she has a nervous breakdown. Mental illness had a much greater stigma in the 1930s than it does now. I think it's safe to say that most young men of that era would have siimply given up and walked away. Instead, Bandini is prepared to devote his life to her.
As many reviewers have pointed out, "Ask the Dust" is a great Los Angeles book. In fact, the city itself - its streets, bars, cafes, boardinghouses, parks and skid row - is a major character in the book. The era the book describes is the 1930s, but as someone who lived near there thirty years later, I can attest to the timelessness of the feeling of the city. It's a strange mixture of gritty reality and poignant dreaminess. Fante captures this feeling perfectly.
"Ask the Dust" also has one of the most lyrical, and haunting - and saddest - endings ever written.
Some reviewers have been put off by the name-calling and ethnic epithets. Of course, Bandini would have been a more admirable character without them. But the writer's first duty is to tell the truth, even when it presents him in an unflattering light. And it's not what the book is about, any more than "Vanity Fair" is solely about Becky Sharp, Thackeray's great anti-heroine.
"Ask the Dust," like "Vanity Fair" and "Of Human Bondage,"examines a basic problem of human existence: why do we love the people who don't love us? Put another way, why can't we love the people who do love us?
And a larger question: why are some people doomed?
A door opens, so that they can escape from the hell they're in. They can't go through it.
Why?
Ask the dust.

I think I wanted more from this after reading ASK THE DUST. I didnt get the same feeling of desperation and despair as in the other novel. I was feeling Fante as being a tragic writer and this family story has some moments but I canno say that i recommend this book that much.

A poignant book, wonderfully written. In my opinion, this was his first and best novel. Even better than "Ask the dust", regarded as his masterpiece... A brilliant beginning for such a writer!

'Wait Until Spring, Bandini' is a kind of book that deserves a place among others that have a main target in vision: to tell a story of memories of a hard and impoverished youth with some touches of bittersweat evocations, like the first love for a special girl, recollections of Christmas time and little family pleasures. Arturo Bandini is a teenager in the years of Depression, of Italian lineage, making his first contacts with the world around him, in a continuous progression to maturity. In this angle, the book has some points of contact with J.D. Salinger 'The Catcher's in the Rye' although Fante has a more strong style of writing - strong, not better - that made him almost a 'beatnik' author like Bukowski. Fante know his office and the book has some excellent moments: the description of the relationship between Svevo Bandini (Arturo's father) and Miss Hildegarde, mainly when this relationship is caught by the eyes of young Arturo; Arturo's delusions toward his first and platonic love, Rosa Pinelli and some other moments, captured with intensity and poignant touches. But the book is far from a masterpiece and sometimes develops a restrained and peasant pace,sometimes even redundant and unimpressive. Anyway, this one is a good first point to know John Fante and his work, almost all of them centered in the figure of Arturo Bandini, again the main characther of 'Ask the Dust' and 'Dream on Bunker Hill'.

Ask the Dust, a later novel, is a better representation of what Fante does well: 1st person honest narration that vacilllates between indifference and a consuming passion for the world. Not to say Wait 'till Spring is bad, it just never really comes together.

If you are into Bukowski, or Chuck Buk, as I like to call him, chances are you'll probably get into Fante very easily. Even if you don't like Bukowski, you should read this. Fante's style is incredibly descriptive yet not real "wordy" like for instance Pynchon, whom I also like, but rarely read. Wait Until Spring, Bandini is a look into the lives of Svevo Bandini, his wife, Maria and their three boys, Arturo, a hot-head in love, also the oldest, August, the "middle child", a devout Catholic aspiring to someday be a priest, and Federico, the token youngest brother. In every aspect this book is damn-near perfect. Emotions run wild, hearts are broken, feelings trampled, yet come the last page, you can't help but feel alive. I don't cry when I read books, and I didn't cry when I read Wait, but the important thing was I was totally comfortable with the fact that I might burst into tears at any moment. The rooster part is a perfect example, something otherwise mundane and almost useless in the long run, had me on the verge of tears. That's coming from someone who's been through war-torn Europe in The Painted Bird, by Kosinski, or as I call it, A Series of Horrifying Events, without batting an eyelash. This book really reminded me that I love the way a tale is told, not what it tells. Do yourself a favor and enjoy Wait Until Spring, Bandini, but don't wait until spring, get it now.

Yet another book about the trials and tribulations of life as a junky. Young Mr. O'Neill's writing is about as dull as the supposed needles he uses. I don't know if this was cathartic for him or if he actually thought this was interesting. This book is about as insightful and enlightening as a can of soup.

One man's account of addiction and his encounters with dealers, pimps, prostitutes and musicians - told with dark humour, style and, above all, honesty.

Tony achieves the impossible: he writes smoothly about the most harrowing amounts of drug ingestion I've ever encountered. It's like watching "Leave it to Beaver" except the family is all shooting themselves up and each other up and yet it has all that tidiness of a 50's American television show. It is just because Tony has such a good command of the language. He obviously had a lot of trouble controlling his drug usage, it almost killed him.

So what does a fine writer like Tony do after writing this book? I mean, is there a market for a book that isn't about ingesting lots of drugs?

I want Tony to do well because his writing is just, well so pleasant. And that is despite the first chapter of this book having more drugs ingested than I've known of being ingested anywhere else in my entire life. Fortunately for me the pace of drug usage slowed down in subsequent chapters or I would have overdosed from the reading.

Tony is a founding member of the Riot Lit Collective, a small group of writers who have banded together on the Internet. Keep an eye on them.

This is a very atypical book. At first I thought it was going to be a drug memoir type of thing, but opening DIGGING THE VEIN I was confronted with something darker altogether - this is the authors own "Season In Hell" - a pitch black, nightmarish account of the authors heroin and crack fuelled implosion.

People looking for another mainstream recovery memoir will probably find much to complain about here. The actual writing is more impressionistic and poetic than those types of books tend to be - this is more "Junky" by William Burroughs than it is Jerry Stahl's "Permanent Midnight". The sections of the book concerning rehabilitation focus more on the cast of lost souls and burnouts who are in the hospital with the author than any of the actual `process' of recovery. AA and NA are pretty much dismissed out of hand and the thought of being a member of such a group compared to joining the Scientologists. Instead, DIGGING THE VEIN is almost a celebration of the horrors of addiction. And as such, I found the book to be quite shocking. But after I put it down I could not fault either the quality of the writing, or the purity of the author's intention. I can honestly say it is unlike any other books about heroin addiction that I have come across in recent years.

On a basic sensationalist level, the book is OK. But it comes to an abrupt, and to me, arbitrary end, and I'm not sure what happens to the author, or even whether I care about him; he never gives me any reason to.

As great reading, it can't touch Hubert Selby's "Requien for a Dream," even though Selby's book is a novel.

I guess people with an axe to grind against 12 step programs will find some fodder here. But imo, it's just ludicrous for a heroin addict to say with any certainty "I was a junkie at 21 and now at 23 I'm all finished with that." Unless he still IS a junkie at 23; the book is not clear on that point whether he's decided to give in to his addiction.

This is the best short novel I have ever read. The story is about a seventeen year old during a few days in 1933 who dreams of being a professional baseball player. While this might not be a complicated or great storyline, the way Fante writes and describes scenes is just terrific. A perfect example of this is when Dominic is with his friend's sister and expresses his love for her. The idea for a scene where he ends up attacking her and being asked to leave isn't that original, but the way Dominic's fantasies and actions are described is an example of brilliant writing. I would highly reccomend it to anyone who would like to start reading John Fante's works.

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's even better, and understandable, that Fante never published the book himself... but it is a treasure and I am eternally grateful to his widow for finding it (and "Road to Los Angeles" and having it published.

Where would I be without the twin barrels of the shotgun of literature for this century, John Fante and Charles Bukowski? In need of good literature, thats where! So let me say that any of Fante's work is worth a read. Yet this book is certainly not his best. Of course any fan of Fante can see that he has two main kinds of stories: childhood stories and struggling writer stories. His childhood stories are usually about his Catholic, Italian-American upbringing, and they are good if that is what you like. That is what this book is. I don't prefer this stuff. I vastly prefer, no, worship, his writer stories which are about a bright young artist living in a thoughtless and bizarre world. This stuff is straight from Knut Hamsen's work (especially Hunger, which inspired Fante and Buk to no end) and includes Dreams of Bunker Hill, Ask the Dust, and to a lesser degree The Road to Los Angeles. While 1933 shines, these other works are the sun.

"1933 Was a Bad Year" is a posthumously published novel by John Fante, who died in 1983. "1933" tells the story of Dominic Molise, a 17-year old Italian-American living in Colorado. While his father, an out-of-work bricklayer, seeks to alleviate the family's poverty by earning money at the pool tables, Dominic dreams of becoming a successful baseball player.

"1933" is a superb slice of American life; both funny and sad, the book is full of vivid characters and memorable scenes. Probably may favorite character is Dominic's wrathful, acid-tongued grandmother, an Italian immigrant with a dislike for the United States.

"1933" offers a pungent taste of the Italian-American experience, and explores such issues as the gulf between immigrant parents and their American-born children. Baseball is a potent motif in the book, and I liked the way the left arm of pitcher Dominic is treated as a "character" with its own motivation. This is one of those novels that I wished would go on when I finished the last sentence; I will definitely be reading more of Fante's work.

I first picked up a Fante book because someone told me that Bukowski was a huge fan. "Ask the Dust" - that first book - introduced me to John Fante's alter ego, Arturo Bandini. It started to make sense to me, why Bukowski liked him. For Arturo Bandini read Henry Chinaski. I read around and learned one or two more things about Fante. Like how he was mainly a scriptwriter in Hollywood because his books didn't really sell. Like how he wrote four Bandini books. "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" and "The Road to Los Angeles" preceded "Ask the Dust". "Dreams from Bunker Hill" came last, written in 1978 after Fante had gone blind. He dictated the book to his wife, Joyce.

I read "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" after "Ask the Dust" and didn't like it quite as much. "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" is a mean book. Not that meanness per se is a bad thing. Just that the meanness in "Wait . . ." seemed real. The authenticity of the feeling sapped me somewhat. I felt winded by the relentless pain. "Wait . . ." is "Ham on Rye" without the ham or the rye. I didn't seek out anything else. I mean, I toyed with reading other Fante books but somehow, I don't know, something always came up. It wasn't that I didn't care. It's just . . . I'm making excuses, I know. Not being honest, somehow. I just felt we weren't suited, John Fante and I.

Time went by. I got over it. Didn't think of him as often as I had. Opened myself up to new experiences. Got back out there. Said here I am.

At which point, "1933 was a bad year" came my way. I thought that - with the distance involved (between 1933 and now) - it couldn't hurt just to look inside. I approached it the way you'd approach a box somebody told you had a snake inside. You know? You kind of lift the lid, peer into the shadows, tense yourself ready to slam the lid down at the first sign of a hiss or a rattle. Instead I got this:

"Wading home that night through flames of snow, my toes burning, my ears on fire, the snow swirling around me like a flock of angry nuns, I stopped dead in my tracks."

I stopped dead in my tracks too. Alright, I thought. All-right! The next 127 pages flew by in just over an hour and a half. It's the story of Dominic Molise - Bandini without the hard rock where his heart should be. It treads similar ground to "Wait . . . " (the wayward father, the flakey religious mother, the sweetheart who doesn't care, the poverty) but - for whatever reason - this just rang my bell far more than that.

Which is probably wrong. I know I've got things the wrong way up, that I should like the Bandini books more but - what are you gonna do?

There are some decent stories here. Almost all of them end abruptly. John writes of the joy and tragedy of life. His bandini series of novels are better. This book is more of an appetizer.

This collection of Fante's short stories is worth having, but shop around for a copy under $35. There are some really great stories here, but don't go through this book all at once, as you'll probably become bored hearing about being an alter boy story after story.

Most of the writing here is early Fante stuff. Its great to see where Fante came from. Some of his later shorts are at the end, which is cool becasue you can see his progression.

While worth having, this book is not, what I'd call, essential.

The Bell didn't Jar for Fante. He wrote like a man on fire, a fire of his own creation, a fire that lit up the sky and said 'Here I am! Take me or cover your eyes!' His stories are nearly flawless, all are great, and some are beyond great: they are burned into us and they are art. 'A Wife for Dino Rossi' is Everyman's Long Day's Journey. 'Home Sweet Home' and 'Hail Mary' drive the reader forward like a speeding locomotive - on Fire. Thank you, Black Sparrow Press for allowing us to warm our hearts and our minds. Thank you, Mr. Fante for never cooling; your sparks have lit a thousand flames.

The first story goes slow but as you get used to it, you ask for more. Wonderful name for a wonderful book.

Crisp. Subversive. Rebellious. Singular in character....There are many terrific stories here. Stories of abuse, childhood revery, the pangs of despised love, an immigrants song, notions of patricide, old Denver, old LA....I enjoyed the youthful attitude Fante gave me of his Catholic schooling. I loved the heart break of 'A Wife for Dino Rossi', 'The Dreamer,' and the final story 'Helen,...' Did I write I liked the heart break? I was moved by it. There are awe-shucks nuns, brutal fathers, multi-cultural football teams, crazy death rites/funerals, in essence a harshness that never seems to disengage it's realtionship with beauty. I look forward to more Fante.

Confronted with Fante long ago as a student, a friendly reference librarian directed me again to the familiar and reliable Twayne series; and in this book I found an analysis which really did explain his novels and stories--especially Ask the Dust--with an accessible and intelligent clarity. Before I knew it, I had a new favorite author in my own personal pantheon. Fante has a underestimated place in California's literary canon--I can't help but think the best word for him is "juicy", as if the culture of early Los Angeles was thrown into a food processor, liquified, and drank straight-up. I owe thanks to Kordich for this knowledge. As a result of those days of happy research, I myself am now a Librarian, and this is a book I heartily recommend to students and researchers looking into underappreciated California novelists.
--Douglas Smith

One of the U.S' truly underrated 20th century authors, John Fante created works of deep philosophical magnitude, often using nothing more than a gimpy typewriter and a six-pack of Schlitz. While 99% of his works continue to be ignored among the canon of the era's L.A. street/film noir/detective novel/depression era novelists, his voice proved to be vigorous and earthy, with dark tannins and orange overtones; perfect for a cold winter's hearth or spontaneous family brawl.

Ms. Kordich (as the kids call her) shines a bright and broad lamp to the breadth of his talents, while giving a round and objective view of just what it was that made Mr. Fante the baddest man in the whole downtown. Her understanding of his work is that which could perhaps only come from someone who knows Los Angeles' seedy underbelly as well as its glitzy sheeny overbelly. She has researched his works well, my friend. You be wise to peruse this tome before delving into this integral author's finer works.