I Confess (Not Really)

You might have yet to hear of John Fante - and with the 20th Century's quickness to forget, it wouldn't be your fault if you haven't. Known in fits and spurts - but mostly fits - his name was elusive as his talent was grand.

Take this passage from Charles Bukowski's Woman:

"Who was your favorite author?"
"Fante."
"Who?"
"John F-a-n-t-e. Ask The Dust, Wait Until Spring..."
"Why do you like him?"
"Total emotion. A very brave man."

The plug is terse (this is Bukowski) and it is off-topic (no misogyny here) but it is an apt summation. Fante was a writer well worth recognizing of whom few had ever heard. But it would take more than a Bukowski to correct the ommission of Fante's name in the American letters

It would take Stephen Cooper.

Have I lost you yet?

The John Fante ReaderLearned Associate Professor at Cal State, Long Beach (Fante's alma mater), this cat Cooper is the reason your reading this now. Oh, he's not the first wise guy to herald the work of this semi-neglected genius (in addition to Bukowski, Fante's fans include Robert Towne, Francis Ford Coppola and Larry McMurtry), but he does seem to be single handedly responsible for the resurgence. Cooper's clean edit of The Big Hunger: Stories 1932-1959 (Black Sparrow Press) put the tales back in circulation. His biography, Full of Life (North Point Press), put the man in perspective. Now a candid collection of slivers and stories and letters, The John Fante Reader (Morrow, $25.95) looks to be the third strike that'll forever put Fante back in - just where this outside insider belongs.

Let's backtrack: A sensitive scrapper from the rough and tumble town of Boulder makes his way to the coastal slum of Long Beach. There, over the roar of row upon row of Steinbeckain canneries, his call is clearly heard. Instant querying and rapt aptitude earn him first the accolades of a fetching literay neo-Bohemian professor, and second the blessing of America's greatest literary curmudgeon, H.L. Mencken.

Swaying Mencken was the literary equivalent of being picked from the crowd and pulled to the pulpit by the Pontif himself. Fortunately, instead of the Basilica, Mencken had The American Mercury, and instead of a Jesus, he held as his messiah (next to himself) a certain German gentleman named Nietszche.

That a renowned rascal like Mencken would see fit to first publish the upstart Fante was in itself a great boost. That said benefactor also happened to be the translator of The Antichrist (1916) and the short story debut entitled "Alter Boy" would prove to be momentous for the errant Catholic word slinger.

In quick succession came a pivotal move to a young and teaming Los Angeles, marriage to a young beaming poetess from Stanford, a fistful of short stories (collected as Dago Red), two important tall tales (Wait and Dust), then another call from the wild blue, this one from Hollywood.

Those were heady days in LA (post depression/pre-War), full of heady minds (Faulkner, Lewis, Sinclair, etc.), but no matter how much loot the studios throw at him, Fante preferred the company of hobos, or at least those of the derelict strip stamped Skid Row. It was there amongst the nickles and the dimes and the dashed dreams, the dirt and the sour and the sorry, that Fante found his muses.

But don't take my word for it (or for that matter Mencken's or Bukowski's), instead read The John Fante Reader, seek out the stories, fill yourself with Fante's life, then decide for yourself. You shan't be disappointed.

Note: This article was first published online in the now defunct Bully Magazine. Supplied with immense thanks to Ken Wohlrob.

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