Fante
Page 28
Chapter One—Italy to America
My dad with his papa’s paisanos in Denver—clergymen, all. Nick Fante is second from the left.
Chapter Two—The Fante Family
My dad in 1939, all fire and ambition. A literary man at last with his best novel, Ask the Dust.
Chapter Three—John and Joyce in Hollywood
The very proper Joyce Fante in Roseville in 1937. Always dignified. Always appropriate. A class act.
Chapter Four—The Death of Ask the Dust
John Fante: Intensity and brilliance in the backyard of a house that he’d just discovered was infested by termites.
Chapter Five—Dan Fante
The Fantes in Los Angeles at the house at 625 South Van Ness. My father had come from dirt-poor beginnings. For better or worse he was finally a member of the middle class.
Chapter Six—Two Brothers
The proud papa and his brood. His two elder sons at peace for the moment.
Chapter Seven—Malibu and the Hollywood Ten
The early days in Malibu at the house on Cliffside Drive with Rocco and Keeda.
Chapter Eight—Rocco
John Fante with his pride, joy, and alter ego Rocco. The dog was my father’s giddy version of O. J. Simpson.
Chapter Nine—Diabetes
John Fante at the home of his writer/cabdriver pal, Bob Brownell. L.A. was a wide-open town in those days. Pop and Bob Brownell knew every dive and back alley.
Chapter Ten—School and Baseball
That’s me with my Judo instructor. The “moves” I learned with this guy saved my bacon more than once in the coming years.
Chapter Eleven—Zanuck and Saroyan
Pop on the back porch at the house in Malibu. As you can see from his expression my father was less than fond of having his picture taken.
Chapter Twelve—The Tailenders
Dan Fante dressed up and celebrating freedom from the fiery sword of St. Monica’s High School.
Chapter Thirteen—Working as a Carny
Three brothers on speaking terms. From left to right that’s Jimmy, Nick, and me.
Chapter Fourteen—Life of a Salesman
Fortune-telling—Joyce Fante style. Mom was very good as a tarot reader and I have practiced the art with my friends for the last thirty years.
Chapter Seventeen—John Fante Writes Again
Pop disliked intrusions almost as much as he disliked having his photo taken. He was clearly annoyed that someone had interrupted his writing to take this picture.
Chapter Nineteen—Batshit Crazy and a Bad Leg
Happy days in Malibu. Pop and Mom, Vickie, Jimmy, and me, taking a knee in front. The photographer is my cousin John V. Fante, a crack mechanic and an outstanding filmmaker.
Chapter Twenty—Smoke and Sexy Vonnie
This is my acting group in New York City, the Dante Theatre Group, in 1975 in the basement of my favorite hotel, the Ansonia, designed by Stanford White. I am seated on the couch at center.
Chapter Twenty-One—The Cure
My cousin John V. Fante took this picture of me at a café in New York City in 1972. I was extremely hungover after a long night of drinking.
Chapter Twenty-Four—Hollywood “Luck”
John Fante, the successful Hollywood writer. One morning at breakfast my father dumped a screenplay down in front of me. “Read this,” he said. “Hemingway couldn’t write this shit—not like I do.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven—A Good Novel Can Change the World
John Fante overseeing Rancho Fante in Malibu.
Chapter Thirty—A Novelist Again
My parents, enjoying the best days of a long marriage. My mother’s love and care added five years to Pop’s life.
Chapter Thirty-One—Dav-Ko Hollywood
My dad and I on the lawn at the house in Malibu, waiting for a crazy German Shepherd to return with his ball.
Chapter Thirty-Two—Another Shot at Detox
This is me in 1980, the troubled poet newly terminated from his job as a dating service salesman. The photo was taken by my then-girlfriend, the beautiful Tara Kearns.
Chapter Thirty-Four—Bukowski, Ben Pleasants, and the Rediscovery of John Fante
Pop often had as many as ten dogs at a time at the house in Malibu. They all loved him.
Chapter Thirty-Six—The Death of John Fante
This photo was taken just before my father became terribly ill. It saddens me just to see it.
Chapter Thirty-Eight—From Success to Filthy Socks
The vice president of Universal Computer Supply heading off to conquer unsuspecting data processing managers. My commission averaged $1,000 per phone sale.
Chapter Forty—A Published Author
This is me in 2002, after having published half a dozen books.
Chapter Forty-One—Dealing with a Family’s Alcoholism
My brother’s death from booze enraged me to the point where it required advertising. On Venice Beach at a tattoo parlor I met an ex-drunk who put it on my arm for half price.
Chapter Forty-Two—The Death of Joyce Fante and John Fante’s Legacy
The dedication of John Fante Square is a fitting tribute to an artist who truly loved Los Angeles.
Epilogue
John Fante and Dan Fante, father and son together on Catalina Island. Our family spent six weeks right there at the beach.
Read on
Letters from John Fante
MY FATHER very much enjoyed his correspondence with his pals. Letter-writing was a skill he had honed to perfection. William Saroyan and Carey McWilliams were the recipients of many funny and sardonic notes, as were H. L. Mencken and others. God help the man who’d send my father a “text,” were he alive today.
Note: These letters have been transcribed from handwritten and typed correspondences and the rare typos have not been corrected.
[To William Saroyan]
9/2/38
Dear Willie:
My book “Wait Until Spring Bandini” will be out October 10, or thereabouts. Wiliam Soskin (Stackpole Sons) is putting it out. The book is, of course, a wow. Advance sales already around 5000, I’m told.
Can you fix it with San Francisco Reviewers—Jackson, etc? Also the Coast. You got to do this for me, you bastard. I’ve plugged you all over the West Coast so much that I deserve some sort of return. I see you got a new book coming out. Before you write another better look at mine: I’m having Bill Soskin send you an advance copy.
Regards from Joyce
206 No. New Hampshire
L.A.
[To William Saroyan]
9/15/38
Dear Willie,
Thanks for your letter and for your most generous cooperation concerning my book. The important gent, as far as I’m concerned is Joe Jackson of the raddio. If you will get him to at least read the book, I am sure the prose will do the rest. Naturally, I have done an immortal work of art.
Down here we got the system though. Westways, for example, is giving me a full page of space in their Tides West section, and I get to write my own review. This is a good idea. I think the practice should be made more universal. I don’t mean for all writers—I mean just for me, and maybe you; nobody else though, Willie. Nobody. Just me and you, all by ourselvsie welzies.
Also the radio. Now the radio is a good thing. The best radio station on earth is KMPC, Beverly Hills. I go on the air at KMPC, reading my own script, all about John Fante who wrote Wait Until Spring, Bandini. Listen to KMPC, Willie. Screw the other radio stations. They should all be put down, all but KMPC. Sometimes I spend whole days, just sitting and listening to KMPC.
A good college yell:
K!
KM!
KMP!
KMPC!
Rah, rah, rah!
Wheeeeeeeeeee (whistle)
KMPC, Beverly, Beverly, Beverly Hills!
In the matter of letters from me, Saroyan, please remember that I answer all correspondence personally, and that all mai
l from me without my signature is null and void and null.
Any person writing a letter to you, with the signature not my own, has no authority to write that letter as representing my statements. I point this out, not because it will ever happen, and not because it has happened in the past. I merely point it out because I feel like a pointer-outer today.
Which brings me to the conclusion of this letter in a: in a few words I can only say that the Sudeten Question is out of my hands. Any statement coming from Konrad Henlein is strictly the statement of Heinlein, unless, of course, my signature is shown below the statement. Remember that, please. Rumors are flying about and they must be put down. What Heinlein says is his business. What I say is mine. Just remember that, Saroyan. No goddam Armenian can accuse me of anything!
Avanti!
J. Fante
[To William Saroyan]
November 13, 1938
Dear Willie The Wasp,
Goddam you to hell and back Willie the Wasp for selling Mister Soskin the idea I have to give the customers a bigger fatter book or they will not buy my product. Fuhrer Soskin has writ me some highly colored bile to the effect he agrees with Willy the Wasp Saroyan that my books like my prick are too little. Never did it occur to me that Willie the Wasp Saroyan my friend and co-writer would go over to the enemy side and advise him on how to destroy me. You are a traitor to the cause, and a bum but I am all over town howling about your new book, telling people it is so great that it leaves me breathless. Willie the Wasp Saroyan, I tell you that you are the goddamndest writer of comedy and I mean humor better than Mark Twain that I ever seen. Me, I just read and laugh, read and laugh, read and laugh. But you are a two-timing bastard, a seller-outer to the capitalist classes, and if it will make you any happier my next book IS going to be a big one. By that I mean about 100,000 words.
Furher Soskin is all set to give me just about what I want in the way of another advance but I am going to be cagey about it, since I dont want to get tied up forever paying off advance royalties. I am figuring on asking for fifteen hundred which will see me through the next book and pay off some debts to the whole population of Southern California. 1500 is twice as much as I got for Bandini, but I figure the next book will sell twice as many copies as Bandini.
Joe Jackson is all het up about me, it seems, and he appears to be a right sort of guy, really a nice fella, and he writes me some very nice letters—better letters than he will ever write you, you Armenian Italian. I see your picture in Newsweek and you look like Vic Bottari. If you will look at Des Moine Register for Oct. 30, you will see my picture, and I look like Tyrone Power. So fuck you.
By now you should have got some stuff from the Guggenheim People for my fellowship application. Will you please, Willie the Wart Hog, will you please get to it at once? It means a great deal to me, and to them. Please don’t fail me Willie. I am coming up your way soon and will look you up. Meanwhile Joyce and I send our love, and please don’t forget that Guggenheim. . . .
J. Fante
206 North New Hampshire
Los Angeles
[To Dan Fante]
Sunday
Sept 3, 1960
Dear Danny:
I was very glad to get your letter. Thanks for taking the time to write your beat-up old man. You write a very nice letter, by the way— clean, clear statements, direct and to the point. Maybe you’re a writer too, like myself. Think about it . . .
I am very pleased to know you want to go back to school. I can’t blame you. School can be a hell of a bore sometimes, but it has its good points too; it sort of straightens out your life, and the loose, casual and pointless days of Summer vacation finally get on your nerves too.
You will be driving the truck to school, I presume. Now I don’t want to preach, Dan—but keep your driving record clean. Now and then when you feel like cutting out at high speed, think about the mess Nick has made of his driving record. Maybe, after all, poor Nick’s mistakes will serve a useful purpose in that they might even save his brother’s life.
I keep working, but that’s about all. I don’t get into any trouble, or get drunk, or blow my dough. I hate to say it, but I’m stiffening up like all old clods. I see lots of broads I’d like to bed down, but it’s just a kind of dreamy notion which quickly passes. I’ll take Mother any day.
Nick is enjoying himself. He just bums around. He takes off like an owl at night and I don’t know what he does, but he gets in reasonably early and sleeps late. The Fat Girl from downstairs who cleans his room and does his laundry is crazy about him, but he won’t even spit on her. I see her kind of hanging around, always anxious to get to his room and clean it up and make his bed. But you know Nick, and what a dirty dog he is in the morning, snarling at everybody.
Glad to hear Maloney likes the Marines. Walter is the only friend of yours I truly liked. He has good stuff, and I am happy that the military life agrees with him.
Poems About My Father
A version of the following poems were printed in A gin-pissing-raw-meat-dual-carburator-V8-son-of-a-bitch from Los Angeles: Collected Poems 1983–2002, published by Sun Dog Press.
My Father’s Ghost
John Fante visited me again this morning
made me feel his presence behind my writing chair
his warm breath on my neck
and
when I closed my eyes
I saw him
sitting at his writing table in Malibu
before his battered old typewriter
spitting out Tommy gun words and gulping coffee
and
I smelled the sour stink of his Lucky Strikes
crushed out
and piled high on his ashtray stacked on two Knut Hamsun novels
and
a new but ancient pain jumped out from inside me
Oh, Pop (I even said out loud)
you ain’t dead—you can’t be
I know it
just this second—in back of my eyes—
I saw you walking past me into the kitchen for another cup of coffee
or matches
and I started to call out,
Hey Dad, didja hear, the Dodgers won today
or
I got an “A” on that history test
Oh Christ,
you’re so here
right now
you can’t have gone away
Too Little—Too Late
Opening the L.A. Times Sunday Book Review
today
I saw it
three
full pages
about John Fante
my
old pop
consensus wisdom has now pronounced absolute praise for a new
national treasure
a biography is out about a passionate, crazy, drunken, angry
L.A. writer
a volcano of a man
and
instead of being happy for my dad
I sat furious—the words tore at my heart
and
I yelled something shitty at my girlfriend down the hall in the bathroom
about her cold coffee
and I thought fuck the fucking L.A.Times— they’re fifty years too late
it can’t help him now
he lost and gave up
blind—in a stinking hospital ward where the night maintenance guys
kept stealing his radio
and the Dodgers had their worst season in years
and I remember
sitting with him and holding his hand to my cheek and thinking to myself
what a lousy way to die
for a man who once had such power
whose words held so much beauty
that the sky itself
was increased by a billion stars
A Poem by Joyce Fante
August in Paris
We had strolled old Paris careless and content
All afternoon. A playful argument
Had
lost its zest. And now, your hand in mine,
We sat in silent peace and sipped our wine.
I liked your poet’s pallor, slept-in clothes,
Unbarbered hair, and haughty sweep of nose.
You obviously had better things to do
Than primp, and groom yourself for public view.
That heat-warped day in August could have fit
In any century, no doubt of it,
And we, two people someone dreamed,
Had spun off too, or so it seemed.
That time was out of sync may be the reason
I was possessed, and loved you out of season.
More Books by Dan Fante
86’D
In Los Angeles, part-time drunk Bruno Dante is jobless again. Searching the want ads for a gig, he finds a chauffeur job opening. He gets the job on one condition: he must remain sober. However, instant business success triggers a booze-and-blackout-soaked downward spiral for Bruno, and he realizes he must ultimately confront the madness of his mind or let his old and familiar demons get the best of him yet again.
“A monstrously great American novel— full of humor, heartbreak, and fire. . . . It’s impossible for a book like 86’d not to burrow into your heart and stay there for the long haul.”
—Tony O’Neill, author of Down and Out on Murder Mile
CHUMP CHANGE
Aspiring writer and part-time drunk Bruno Dante returns to Los Angeles to face his family in the wake of his father’s illness. The tension and stress drive him to dull the pain the only way he knows how—with alcohol. A couple days later he wakes up naked in a stolen car with an underage hooker whose pimp has stolen his wallet— and this trip has just begun.
“Another perfectly pitched howl from the raw edge of the gutter.” —Michael Connelly
MOOCH
Bruno Dante is the best boiler-room salesman in Los Angeles with one problem: he can’t keep a good thing going. When he enters into a love/hate relationship with a beautiful and dangerous coworker, his world begins to spiral out of control.