No two lives could have been more different, yet similar in a few essential ways than John and Dan Fante's. As father and son, John and Dan Fante were prone to fights, resentment and extended periods of silence. As men, they were damaged by alcoholism. As writers, they were compelled by anger, rage and unstoppable passion.
In FANTE, Dan Fante traces his family's history from the hillsides of Italy to the immigrant neighborhoods of Colorado to Los Angeles. There, John Fante struggles to gain the literary recognition he so badly craves, and despite the publication of his best known work, ASK THE DUST, he turns to the steady paycheck of Hollywood, working as a screenwriter to support his family. We follow Dan through a troubled childhood to his discovery of life's vices through work as a carnival barker and later as he hitchhikes to New York City, where he drives a taxi for twelve years. While John Fante's rage over his perceived failures as a writer and his struggle with debilitating diabetes make him more and more miserable, Dan struggles with alcoholic blackouts, suicidal thoughts and what he deems a broken mind.
John was a writer whose literary contributions were not recognised until the end of his life. Dan was an alcoholic saved by writing, who at the age of 45 picked up his father's old typewriter in order to ease the madness in his mind. Fante is the story of the evolution of a relationship between father and son who eventually found their way back to loving each other. In straightforward unapologetic prose, Dan Fante lays bare his family's story from his point of view, with the rage and passion of a writer, which he feels was his true inheritance and his father's greatest gift.
Dan Fante is the author of the memoir Fante, the novels 86'd, Chump Change, Mooch, and Spitting Off Tall Buildings, and several books of poetry, short stories, and plays. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.
What People are Saying About This
Mary Dearborn
“What a story. Riveting, harrowing, and extremely moving. Dan Fante’s been to hell and back and taken notes along the way.”
Neil Strauss
“This book is a knockout, with all the down-and-out, kick-you-in-the-teeth, unflinching prose of self-taught street writers like Herbert Huncke and Hubert Selby, Jr. Dan Fante is now entrenched on my list of self-sabotaging, self-abusing fuckup writer anti-heroes.”
John Fowles
“The Fantes, father and son, have been a major new discovery for me . . . I can’t think of the West Coast without them.”
Carolyn Kellogg
“[Fante] is frank and funny. Dan does not lionize or demonize his father, nor does he indulge in the self pitying or self gratifying aspects of memoir. Its an achievement in tone and delightful to read.”
Michael Connelly
“If writing is fighting, then Dan Fante goes fifteen rounds and stays standing. This is a fascinating story about two hard-edged men, survival and the passion to live and to write.”
Willy Vlautin
“A brilliant memoir. John and Dan Fante are two sides of the same coin. Both battered but resilient, they’re writers who have written with pure honesty and blood and never gave up. It’s one of the best memoirs I’ve read in years.”
Ben Meyers
“If you like your prose vodka-soaked, soulful, and bleeding on the page, then Fante is your man.”
Ron Shelton
“Dan Fante’s writing grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let you go. It’s authentic, gritty, and yet full of a flawed beauty found in the strangest places and the hardest people.”
