John Fante

Fante was born in Denver, Colorado, on April 8, 1909,[3] to Nicola Fante from Torricella Peligna (Abruzzo), and Mary Capolungo of Lucanian descent. He attended various Catholic schools in Boulder, Colorado, before briefly enrolling at the University of Colorado.[3] He dropped out of college in 1929 and moved to Southern California to focus on his writing.

Fante and Joyce Smart met on January 30, 1937, and were married on July 31 of that same year in Reno, Nevada.[4]

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.[3] With Mencken's help, Fante published his first novel, Wait Until Spring, Bandini in 1938.[5] The following year, his best known novel, the semi-autobiographical Ask the Dust, appeared.[5] Bandini served as his alter ego in a total of four novels, often known as "The Bandini Quartet": Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938), The Road to Los Angeles (chronologically second in the saga, this is the first novel Fante wrote but it was unpublished until 1985), Ask the Dust (1939) and finally Dreams from Bunker Hill (1982), which was dictated to his wife, Joyce, towards the end of his life.[6] His short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.

Starting in the 1950s, Fante made a living primarily as a screenwriter,[7] building a lucrative career writing mostly unproduced screenplays.[5] Fante's screenwriting credits include the comedy-drama Full of Life (1957), based on his 1952 novel of the same name, which starred Judy Holliday and Richard Conte, and was nominated for Best Written American Comedy at the 1957 WGA Awards.[8] He also co-wrote Walk on the Wild Side (1962), which stars Jane Fonda in her second credited film role, based on the novel by Nelson Algren.[7] 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.

In the late 1970s, at the suggestion of novelist and poet Charles Bukowski, who had accidentally discovered Fante's work in the Los Angeles Public Library, Black Sparrow Press began to republish the (then out-of-print) works of Fante, creating a resurgence in his popularity.[3][9][10]

Fante was diagnosed with diabetes in 1955, which ultimately cost him his eyesight and led to the 1977 amputation of his toes and feet, and later legs.[7][5] He died on May 8, 1983.[11]

Fante and Joyce raised four children in Malibu, California,[5][12] including Dan Fante, an author and playwright who died in 2015.[13]

A view of John Fante Square in downtown Los Angeles

He is known to be one of the first writers to portray the tough times faced by many writers in Los Angeles, often referred to as "the quintessential L.A. novelist."[7] He has also been cited as a precursor to Beat writers.[7] Robert Towne has called Ask the Dust the greatest novel ever written about Los Angeles.[2] Michael Tolkin said the novel should be "mandatory reading" in the Los Angeles school system.[7] More than 60 years after it was published, Ask the Dust appeared for several weeks on the New York Times' Best Sellers List.

Fante's work and style have influenced similar authors such as Charles Bukowski, who stated in his introduction to Ask the Dust that "Fante was my god".[14] Bukowski dedicated poems to Fante, and in the early part of his career was said to go around shouting, "I am Arturo Bandini!" in reference to Fante's alter ego.[7] In his 1978 novel Women, Bukowski's alter ego Henry Chinaski is asked to name his favorite author and he replies, "Fante."[5]

Fante wrote about writing and the people and places where he lived and worked, which included Wilmington, Long Beach, Manhattan Beach, the Bunker Hill district of downtown Los Angeles, as well as various homes in Hollywood, Echo Park and Malibu. Recurring themes in Fante's work are poverty, Catholicism, family life, Italian-American identity, sports and the writing life. 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. Many of his novels and short stories also feature or focus on fictional incarnations of Fante's father, Nick Fante, as a cantankerous wine tippling, cigar stub-smoking bricklayer.

In 1987, Fante was posthumously awarded the PEN USA President's Award.[15]

On October 13, 2009, Los Angeles City Council member Jan Perry put forward a motion, seconded by Jose Huizar, that the intersection of Fifth Street and Grand Avenue be designated John Fante Square. The site is outside the Los Angeles Central Library frequented by the young Fante, and where Charles Bukowski discovered Ask The Dust. On April 8, 2010, the author's 101st birthday, the Fante Square sign was unveiled in a noon ceremony attended by Fante's family, fans and city officials. Fante Square is located near the old Bunker Hill neighborhood he wrote about, and where he also lived.[16][17]

Francis Ford Coppola bought the rights to The Brotherhood of the Grape, but a film was not produced.[7][18] Dominique Deruddere directed the movie version of Wait Until Spring, Bandini, which was released in 1989.[7][19] In March 2006, Paramount Pictures released Ask the Dust, directed by Robert Towne and starring Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek and Donald Sutherland.[20] In December 2006, a 2001 documentary film about Fante, entitled A Sad Flower in the Sand (directed by Jan Louter), aired on the PBS series Independent Lens.[21] Yvan Attal directed and starred in the French film My Dog Stupid (Mon chien Stupide), released in October 2019, based on the story of the same name in West of Rome.[22]

On January 18, 2001, the play 1933 by Randal Myler and Brockman Seawell, based on Fante's novel 1933 Was a Bad Year, premiered at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.[23]

• Stephen Cooper, Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante, New York: North Point Press, 2000
• Dan Fante, Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing, Drinking, and Surviving, 2011

Wikiquote has quotations related to: John Fante

• Works by or about John Fante in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• John Fante at IMDb
• Italian-English website about Fante's family
• 1940 John Fante story about Bunker Hill, from the Los Angeles Times