John Fante – American Author

From "Ask the Dust" by John Fante

"The good days, the fat days, page upon page of manuscript; prosperous days, something to say...and the pages mounted up. Fabulous days, the rent paid, still fifty dollars in my wallet, nothing to do all day and night but write and think of writing: ah such sweet days, to see it grow, to worry for it, myself, my book, my words, maybe important, maybe timeless, but mine nevertheless, the indomitable Arturo Bandini, already deep into his first novel.
So an evening comes and what to do with it, my soul so cool from the bath of words, my feet so solid upon the Earth, and what are the others doing, the rest of the people of the world?"

John Fante was born in Denver, Colorado in 1909. He attended various Catholic schools in and around Boulder Colorado, before enrolling at the University of Colorado. He dropped out of college and moved to Southern California to focus on his writing. He began writing in 1929 and published his first short story, "Altar Boy" in 1932, in the literary magazine, The American Mercury.

His first novel "Wait Until Spring" was published in 1938, and was to become the first in his  Arturo Bandini series of novels, the others being, "The Road to Los Angeles",  "AskThe Dust" and "Dreams From Bunker Hill".

Arturo Bandini served as Fante's alter ego, his novels being largely biographical and made up of his own life experiences. The main themes in Fante's work are poverty, love, the common man, everyday life and it's trials, Catholicism, family life, American identity, sports, and the writing life itself.

His most famous novel by far is "Ask The Dust" (originally titled "Ask The Dust on The Road"). It has been described as a virtuoso performance by an influential master of the twentieth – century American Novel. It tells the story of a young struggling author, living in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles and his doomed love for Mexican waitress Camilla Lopez. As he tirelessly works his trade, skirting poverty, his writing career starts to take off with the publication of a number of short stories and finally his first novel. Eventually Camilla has a nervous breakdown and disappears into the Mojave desert after pursuing her true love, ex waiter Sam. In the end Bandini loses Camilla and rejects the writers life he had fought so hard to attain.

Fante's writing has been described as having a clear voice, vivid characters, shoot-from-the-hip style, and painful, emotional honesty blended with humor and scrupulous self-criticism.

Fante was diagnosed with diabetes in 1955 eventually leading to blindness in 1978 and the amputation of both legs within the next two years. He continued to write however, dictating his work to his wife Joyce, publishing his final novel "Dreams From Bunker Hill" in 1982. He died on May 8, 1983, at the age of seventy four.

Fante's literary admirers included Charles Bukowski who was quoted as saying "Fante was my God", and openly admitted borrowing Fante's style and voice for his own writing style. The two writers became friends shortly before Fante's death. Bukowski went on to write the poem "Fante" in honour of his literary hero.

John Fante 1909 – 1983