Life
Born in Colorado, Fante's early years were spent in relative poverty. The son of an Italian born father, Nicola Fante, and an Italian-American mother, Mary Capolungo, Fante was educated in various Catholic schools in Boulder, Colorado and briefly attended the University of Colorado.
In 1929, he dropped out of college and moved to Southern California to concentrate on his writing. He lived and worked in Wilmington, Long Beach, and in the Bunker Hill district of downtown Los Angeles, California.
He is known to be one of the first writers to portray the tough times faced by many writers in L.A. His work and style has influenced such similar authors as "Poet Laureate of Skid Row" Charles Bukowski and influential Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac. He was proclaimed by Time Out magazine as one of Americas “criminally neglected writers."
Fante's son Dan Fante is also a novelist, following his father's habit of telling semi-autobiographical stories using a similarly named protagonist (e.g., Bruno Dante) in novels like Chump Change and Mooch.
Career
After many unsuccessful attempts at publishing stories in the highly regarded literary magazine The American Mercury his short story "Altar Boy" was accepted conditionally by the magazine's editor, H.L. Mencken. The acceptance of "Altar Boy" by The American Mercury was accompanied by a typically snappy reply from Mencken that read: "Dear Mr. Fante, What do you have against a typewriter? If you transcribe this manuscript in type I'll be glad to buy it. Sincerely yours, H.L. Mencken."
By far, his most popular novel is the semi-autobiographical Ask the Dust, the second book in what is now referred to as "The Saga of Arturo Bandini". Bandini served as his alter ego in a total of four novels: Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938), The Road to Los Angeles (chronologically, this is the first novel Fante wrote but it was unpublished until 1985), Ask the Dust (1939), and finally Dreams from Bunker Hill (1982), which was dictated to his wife Joyce near the end of his life while he was suffering from complications caused by advanced diabetes, among them blindness.
Other novels include Full of Life (1952), The Brotherhood of the Grape (1977), and 1933 Was a Bad Year (1985; incomplete). Two novellas, 'My Dog Stupid' and 'The Orgy' were published in 1986 under the title West of Rome. His short story collection, Dago Red, was originally published in 1940, and then republished with a few additional stories in 1985 under the title The Wine of Youth."
Recurring themes in Fante's work are poverty, Catholicism, family life, Italian-American identity, sports, and the writing life. Anyone interested in the literature of Los Angeles would do well reading "Ask the Dust," as it has been referred to over the years as a monumental Southern California/Los Angeles novel by a host of reputable sources (e.g.: Carey McWilliams, Charles Bukowski, and The Los Angeles Times Book Review). More than sixty years after it was published, Ask the Dust appeared for several weeks on the New York Times' Bestseller's List. Fante's clear voice, vivid characters, shoot-from-the-hip style, and painful, emotional honesty blended with humor and scrupulous self-criticism lends his books to wide appreciation. Most of his novels and stories take place either in Colorado or California.
Among Fante's screenwriting credits is the comedy-drama Full of Life (1956) with Judy Holliday and Richard Conte, based on Fante's 1952 novel, and Walk on the Wild Side (1962), which stars Jane Fonda in her first credited film role, based on the Nelson Algren novel of the same name. His other screenplay credits include Dinky, Jeanne Eagels, My Man and I, The Reluctant Saint, Something for a Lonely Man and Six Loves. As Fante himself often admitted, most of what he wrote for the screen was simply hackwork intended to bring in a paycheck, and as such it holds little interest for anyone besides the obsessive cinephile, or the most serious student of Fante. Often the most interesting products of his screenwriting work are not the scripts or the movies themselves, but the effect that Fante's contempt for the Hollywood movie machine, had on his other works.
In the early 1980s, at the suggestion of novelist and poet Charles Bukowski (who claims in his preface to Fante's "Ask the Dust" that "Fante was my god") Black Sparrow Press began to republish the (then out-of-print) works of Fante, creating a resurgence in his popularity. When Black Sparrow was reconfigured on its founder's retirement in 2002, publication of John Fante's works was taken over by HarperCollins under the Ecco imprint, but not before Black Sparrow Press could publish the last of Fante's uncollected stories in The Big Hunger (2000). Full of Life: The Biography of John Fante was published by Stephen Cooper also in 2000, followed by The Fante Reader in 2003. Also available are two collections of letters, Fante/Mencken: A Personal Correspondence (1989) and Selected Letters (1991).
Bibliography
* Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938)
* Ask the Dust (1939)
* Dago Red (1940), short story collection
* Full of Life (1952)
* The Brotherhood of the Grape (1977)
* Dreams from Bunker Hill (1982)
* 1933 Was a Bad Year (posthumously, 1985; incomplete)
* Road to Los Angeles (posthumously, 1985)
* West of Rome (posthumously, 1986), two novellas
* The Big Hunger (posthumously, 2000), short story collection
Filmography
Ask the Dust (2006) (novel)
Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1989) (novel)
Something for a Lonely Man (1968) (TV) (writer)
Maya (1966) (writer)
"The Richard Boone Show" (1 episode, 1963)
- Captain Al Sanchez (1963) TV episode (writer)
My Six Loves (1963) (writer)
The Reluctant Saint (1962) (writer)
... aka Joseph Desa (UK)
Walk on the Wild Side (1962) (screenplay)
Jeanne Eagels (1957) (writer)
Full of Life (1956) (novel) (screenplay)
My Man and I (1952) (writer)
Youth Runs Wild (1944) (screenplay) (story)
East of the River (1940) (story "Mama Ravioli")
... aka Mama Raviola
The Golden Fleecing (1940) (story)
Dinky (1935) (story)
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