Ask the Dust

"Either the work of John Fante is unknown to you or unforgettable. He was not the kind of writer to leave room in between." — New York Times

"Fante was my God."—Charles Bukowski

John Fante’s classic California novel details the adventures of his alter ego, Arturo Bandini, a young writer in Great Depression-era Los Angeles. Struggling to succeed, Bandini falls into an obsessive love affair with the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Yet just as fortune looms with the publication of his first novel, everything falls apart when Camilla has a nervous breakdown and disappears—propelling Bandini to reject the writer’s life.

Ask the Dust is a virtuoso performance by an influential master of the twentieth-century American novel. It is the story of Arturo Bandini, a young writer in 1930s Los Angeles who falls hard for the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Struggling to survive, he perseveres until, at last, his first novel is published. But the bright light of success is extinguished when Camilla has a nervous breakdown and disappears . . . and Bandini forever rejects the writer’s life he fought so hard to attain.

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

"The strength of Fante’s novel is that it is not rhapsodic so much as realistic, portraying Bandini, as well as the city itself, in complicated ways." - Alta Journal