Ask the Dust - Paperback

"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.

Back Jacket

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.