Dreams from Bunker Hill

The Final Book in the Saga of Arturo Bandini

Dreams of Bunker Hill is the fourth and final novel in John Fante's Arturo Bandini series, chronicling the protagonist's struggles as a young writer in Depression-era Los Angeles. The story opens with Bandini living in a cheap room on Bunker Hill, working to establish his literary career. He lands a job as a busboy, but his ambitions are focused on writing.

As Bandini experiences both minor successes and significant failures, he continues to grapple with his identity as an artist and his place in the world. The novel follows this trajectory of aspiration and struggle, documenting his attempts to find success while contending with his own self-destructive tendencies.

My first collision with fame was hardly memorable. I was a busboy at Marx's Deli. The year was 1934. The place was Third and Hill, Los Angeles. I was twenty-one years old, living in a world bounded on the west by Bunker Hill, on the east by Los Angeles Street, on the south by Pershing Square, and on the north by Civic Center. I was a busboy nonpareil, with great verve and style for the profession, and though I was dreadfully underpaid (one dollar a day plus meals) I attracted considerable attention as I whirled from table to table, balancing a tray on one hand, and eliciting smiles from my customers. I had something else beside a waiter's skill to offer my patrons, for I was also a writer.

"Mordantly funny." - The Guardian

“Either the work of John Fante is unknown to you or it is unforgettable. He was not the kind of writer to leave room in between.” - Janet Maslin, New York Times

"Fante was my God... here, at last, was a man not afraid of emotions." - Charles Bukowski