3.3
The Road to Los Angeles
by John Fante
I had a lot of jobs in Los Angeles Harbor because our family was poor and my father was dead. My first job was ditchdigging a short time after I graduated from high school. Every night I couldn’t sleep from the pain in my back. We were digging an excavation in an empty lot, there wasn’t any shade, the sun came straight from a cloudless sky, and I was down in that hole digging with two huskies who dug with a love for it, always laughing and telling jokes, laughing and smoking bitter tobacco.
RELEASED2010
PUBLISHERHarper Collins
LANGUAGEEN
John Fante was an American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Italian descent. By far, his most popular novel is the semi-autobiographical *Ask the Dust*, the third book in what is now referred to as "The Saga of Arturo Bandini" or "The Bandini Quartet". 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Spring, Bandini* (1938), *The Road to Los Angeles* (chronologically, this is the first novel Fante wrote but it was unpublished until 1985), *Ask the Dust* (1939), and finally *Dreams from Bunker Hill* (1982), which was dictated to his wife, Joyce, towards the end of his life. Fante's use of Bandini as his alter ego can be compared to Charles Bukowski's character, Henry Chinaski. Bukowski was heavily influenced by John Fante. In the late 1970s, at the suggestion of novelist and poet Charles Bukowski, Black Sparrow Press began to republish the (then out-of-print) works of Fante, creating a resurgence in his popularity.
3.3
The Road to Los Angeles
by John Fante
I had a lot of jobs in Los Angeles Harbor because our family was poor and my father was dead. My first job was ditchdigging a short time after I graduated from high school. Every night I couldn’t sleep from the pain in my back. We were digging an excavation in an empty lot, there wasn’t any shade, the sun came straight from a cloudless sky, and I was down in that hole digging with two huskies who dug with a love for it, always laughing and telling jokes, laughing and smoking bitter tobacco.
RELEASED2010
PUBLISHERHarper Collins
LANGUAGEEN
John Fante was an American novelist, short story writer and screenwriter of Italian descent. By far, his most popular novel is the semi-autobiographical *Ask the Dust*, the third book in what is now referred to as "The Saga of Arturo Bandini" or "The Bandini Quartet". 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, towards the end of his life. Fante's use of Bandini as his alter ego can be compared to Charles Bukowski's character, Henry Chinaski. Bukowski was heavily influenced by John Fante. In the late 1970s, at the suggestion of novelist and poet Charles Bukowski, Black Sparrow Press began to republish the (then out-of-print) works of Fante, creating a resurgence in his popularity.
