5.0
The Bandini Quartet
by John Fante
One of the great outsider figures of twentieth-century literature, John Fante possessed a style of deceptive simplicity, full of emotional immediacy and tremendous psychological point. Among the novels, short stories and screenplays that comprised his career, Fante's crowning accomplishments were, for many, his four stories about a certain uncomplicated character from the hills of Abruzzi. Collected together in one volume for the first time, The Bandini Quartet tells of Arturo Bandini, Fante's fictional alter ego, an impoverished young Italian-American who, armed with only a Jesuit high school education and the insane desire to write novels, escapes his suffocating home in Colorado to seek glory in a Depression-era Los Angeles. This edition also includes the first-ever UK publication of Dreams From Bunker Hill, the brilliant and final novel which a blind and wheelchair-bound Fante, nearing his death bed, dictated to his wife Joyce.
FictionLiteraryCultural Heritage
RELEASED2004
PUBLISHERCanongate
LENGTH749
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Spring, Bandini* (1938), *The Road to Los Angeles* (chronologically, this is the first novel Fante wrote but it was unpublished until 1985), *Ask the Dust* (1939), and finally *Dreams from Bunker Hill* (1982), which was dictated to his wife, Joyce, towards the end of his life.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.
5.0
The Bandini Quartet
by John Fante
One of the great outsider figures of twentieth-century literature, John Fante possessed a style of deceptive simplicity, full of emotional immediacy and tremendous psychological point. Among the novels, short stories and screenplays that comprised his career, Fante's crowning accomplishments were, for many, his four stories about a certain uncomplicated character from the hills of Abruzzi. Collected together in one volume for the first time, The Bandini Quartet tells of Arturo Bandini, Fante's fictional alter ego, an impoverished young Italian-American who, armed with only a Jesuit high school education and the insane desire to write novels, escapes his suffocating home in Colorado to seek glory in a Depression-era Los Angeles. This edition also includes the first-ever UK publication of Dreams From Bunker Hill, the brilliant and final novel which a blind and wheelchair-bound Fante, nearing his death bed, dictated to his wife Joyce.
FictionLiteraryCultural Heritage
RELEASED2004
PUBLISHERCanongate
LENGTH749
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.
