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Product Description
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This book is another sterling recommendation from the Saltzman workshop. The under-appreciated Fante's second outing details the adventures of his alterego, Arturo Bandini, as the struggling young writer tackles Los Angeles in the late 1930s. And take it from personal experience, tackling L.A. as a destitute young scribe some decades later isn't much different. In other words: Fante gets it right and sets it down in his Chianti-steak-and-potatoes style, with prose both simple and rich. This Black Sparrow edition has a bonus: Charles Bukowski's great preface on how Fante stacks up against writers that were at once more famous--and far more anemic.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Ask the Dust is a virtuoso performance by an influential master of the twentieth-century American novel. It is the story of Arturo Bandini, a young writer in 1930s Los Angeles who falls hard for the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Struggling to survive, he perseveres until, at last, his first novel is published. But the bright light of success is extinguished when Camilla has a nervous breakdown and disappears . . . and Bandini forever rejects the writer's life he fought so hard to attain.
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I was a young man, starving and drinking and trying to be a writer. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I was a young man, starving and drinking and trying to be a writer. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Haunting Ending ... A Cult Classic ... About the Humiliations of Love,
By Mark Heywood (Montreal) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Ask The Dust (Paperback)
This book lingered on my mind for weeks. So it must good. It's the story of Arturo Bandini, a young would-be writer who comes to Los Angeles to make it as a writer, but discovers poverty and loneliness instead. That is, until he encounters Camilla Lopez, a Mexican-American waitress.What makes this romance interesting is, like all great love stories, it is doomed. In fact, there is quite of bit of friction and nastiness right from the beginning between these so-called lovers. And ultimately it is one-sided, with Arturo sadly learning a grand lesson in humility. (We've all been there.) We see the character arc from self-absorbed ego-driven writer (with delusions of grandeur) to self-sacrificing and responsible human being. This is a tragic tale, with Camilla's decline and Arturo's helplessness underscored. The ending is brilliant. I literally fell into a stunned silence at the end. My only small complaint is that John Fante doesn't to know much about the main narcotic alluded to in the book: Marijuana. It's almost comical how little he knows about it ("Reefer Madness" might be his main reference and source of information); yet this aside, ASK THE DUST remains a powerful book, a haunting one. One I would recommend, especially to writers. Another novel I would recommend is THE LOSER'S CLUB by Richard Perez, which would make an excellent companion to ASK THE DUST, both books being ultimately about the loneliness of writing, both being about failure, both quite touching.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
one of the forgotten greats,
By
This review is from: Ask The Dust (Paperback)
I was introduced to this book thru the works of Charles Bukowski and before I had even finished the 1st page I was struck by just how much Fante did influence Bukowski. Spare prose, simple sentences. Bukowski once said that the most difficult thing in Art is to create something simple. Well, Fante accomplished that difficult feat.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A story about a transformation,
By R. Petersen (B.C. Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Ask The Dust (Paperback)
At first read this book seems to be about nothing more than an idiot who falls for a shrew. But the book continues to open up and reveal itself after you've finished it. Bandini is a struggling young writer living in poverty in Los Angeles in the 1930's, having moved from the midwest, and he gets tangled up romantically with an impetuous, unstable waitress. But this relationship, for all its squalid ups and downs, has a transformative effect on Bandini and he begins to act on compassionate impulses. He matures as a human being, and coincidentally, his writing takes off. The thing is, none of this (Bandini's changing as a man) really occurs to you while you're reading the book because the development is presented with skilled subtlety. The meaning reverberates afterwards, and to me this is a sure sign I've read a great book (read "Oracle Night" by Paul Auster, for the same effect magnified ten times). Fante writes with feeling, at times unrestrained, and his sense of humour seems unintentional, which of course makes it all the more effective. This is a book that made me think, and it also spoke to aspects of my own life. What more can you ask of any book?
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