Mooch: A Novel

In Mooch, aspiring writer and part-time drunk Bruno Dante is finally sober, and has become the best boiler-room salesman in L.A. But Dan Fante’s anti-hero can’t keep a good thing going. Leaping headfirst into an impossibly destructive love-hate relationship with the addictive ex-stripper Jimmi Valiente, Bruno finds it’s not long at all before his world begins to spiral out of control…again.With prose that seeps with brutal aggression and biting wit, Fante portrays the unavoidable self-destruction of a man whose inner demons won’t allow him to live within the limitations of society. |

Bruno Dante is the best boiler-room salesman in Los Angeles. There's only one problem: he can't keep a good thing going. When he becomes involved with a beautiful but dangerous fellow Orbit Computer Supplies employee—sexy ex-stripper, gangbanger, and crackhead Jimmi Valiente—Bruno's ready to chuck his job and his most recent twelve–step program. Leaping headfirst into an impossibly destructive love-hate relationship with the addictive Jimmi, Bruno finds it's not long at all before his world begins to spiral out of control . . . again.

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“Dark and bleak, dirty and real. . . . Dan Fante’s style is raw, insightful, and deftly realized.” - Time Out New York

“Breathtaking writing. . . . Angry, acerbic, self-pitying and often painfully funny. . . Read it at your peril.” - Anthony Bourdain

“This devastating and terrifying book . . . sees Fante writing the kind of emotionally tormented novel that his father would surely have written if he’d been born into Dan’s generation.” - Uncut