Kirjahaku

As father and son, John and Dan Fante's relationship was characterized by competition, resentment, rages, and extended periods of silence. As men, both were driven to succeed but damaged by often uncontrolled drinking. As writers, both were gifted with unstoppable passion. In "Fante", Dan Fante traces his family's history from the hillsides of Italy to the immigrant neighborhoods of Colorado to Los Angeles. There, John Fante struggled to gain the literary recognition he so badly craved, and after the publication of his best known work, "Ask the Dust" (which was quickly consigned to literary oblivion), he turned to the steady paycheck of screenwriting, working to support his family and enjoy the good life of a well-paid Hollywood writer. We follow Dan through a troubled childhood to his discovery of words and life's vices, through work as a carnival barker and later as he hitchhikes to New York City, where he drives a taxi for seven years. Over time the elder Fante's rages over his perceived failure as a writer and his struggle with debilitating diabetes make him more and more miserable, until, late in life, he rekindles his true voice as a novelist. Meanwhile, Dan battles alcoholic blackouts, repeated suicide attempts and what he considers an unrelenting and murderous mind. John was a writer whose literary contributions were not recognized until the end of his life. Dan was an alcoholic saved by writing, who at the age of 45 picked up his father's old typewriter in order to ease his madness. "Fante" is the story of the evolution of a relationship between father and son who eventually found their way back to loving each other. In straightforward, unapologetic prose, Dan Fante lays bare his family's story from his point of view, with the rage and passion of a true writer, which he feels was his true inheritance and his father's greatest gift.

In Los Angeles, struggling telemarketer-writer and part-time drunk Bruno Dante is jobless again. The publication of his book of short stories has been put off indefinitely. Searching the want ads for a gig, he finds a chauffeur job. When Bruno calls the number in the ad, he discovers the boss is his former Manhattan employer David Koffman, who is opening a West Coast branch of his thriving limo service. Koffman hires Bruno as resident manager of Dav-Ko Hollywood under one condition: he must remain sober. But instant business success triggers an abrupt booze-and-blackout-soaked downward spiral for Bruno, forcing him to confront his own madness as he struggles to keep his old familiar demons from getting the best of him yet again.

Now back in print to coincide with the publication of his new novel, 86'd, Dan Fante's Spitting Off Tall Buildings is the story of aspiring writer and part-time drunk Bruno Dante, who leaves sunny Los Angeles for cold, hard New York City. Falling into a string of temporary, dead-end jobs, punctuated by meaningless affairs and intense drinking, Bruno has almost had enough when a sudden event offers him the opportunity to get his life back on track--unless screwing up, like drinking, proves a habit too difficult to shake. In prose steeped with rage and surprising humor, Fante presents a point of view of America that only the true outlaw will recognize.

When he finds out his father is in a coma, aspiring writer and part-time drunk Bruno Dante, fresh from the nuthouse, must head to Los Angeles for a fraught family reunion in Dan Fante's Chump Change. Now back in print to coincide with the publication of his new novel, 86'd, Chump Change follows Bruno through the tension and stress of facing his family--and the inevitable, pain-dulling drinking that lands him naked in a stolen car with an underage hooker whose pimp has stolen his wallet. Chump Change is "an honest misfit's view of America far too few know." (John Fowles, author of The French Lieutenant's Woman).

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.

“Soaked in booze and sadness, psychotic eruptions and hilarity.”—Willy VlautinIn the freewheeling, debaucherous tradition of Charles Bukowski, a taxi driver’s stories from the streets of lowlife Los Angeles—with an introduction by Willy Vlautin. “Dan Fante is an authentic literary outlaw.”—New York Times. Dan Fante lived the stories he wrote. His voice has the immediacy of a stranger of the next barstool, of a friend who lives on the edge. As he writes in Short Dog (the title is street slang for a half-pint of alcohol): I had been back working a cabbie gig as a result of my need for money. And insanity. Hack driver is the only occupation I know about with no boss, and because I have always performed poorly at supervised employment, I returned to the taxi business. The up side, now that I was working again, was that my own boozing was under control and I was on beer only, except for my days off.Fante was the son of famed novelist and screenwriter John Fante, but as the Los Angeles Times wrote, the younger Fante “… allows us a glimpse of the Southern California demimonde that surely escaped his father’s attention.”These outsider stories are raw, vivid, and brutally honest. But even when the stories are fueled by anger and disgust, they are punctuated by unexpectedly funny and dark-humored vignettes. Short Dog is for readers ready for a cab ride on the wild side.

Suositun Bruno Dante -trilogian huimaava itsenäinen päätösosa.

Dan Fanten uusi runokirja tarjoaa raakaa elämää raakana. Fanten työkalupakkiin kuuluvat huumori, tuska ja itseironia. Fante moukaroi sydäntään ja menneisyyttään sorkkaraudalla ja vasaralla. Mutta kirjassa on myös runoja, joissa seestynyt mies Arizonan autiomaan laidalla ihmettelee päivien auvoa tuoreena aviomiehenä ja isänä.Sammakko on aiemmin julkaissut Dan Fantelta runokirjan Unohda Guggenheim, kolme romaania, eli Bruno Dante -trilogian ja taksikuskitarinoita sisältävän novellikokoelman Korkinimijä. Kaikki ovat Kari Aartoman suomennoksia.

Marinoitu losangelesilainen puhelinmyyjä-kirjailija Bruno Dante on jälleen työttömänä. Hänen novellikokoelmansa julkaisuajankohta on lykätty hamaan tulevaisuuteen. Selaillessaan avoimia työpaikkoja hän huomaa autonkuljettajan vakanssin. Soittaessaan ilmoituksessa annettuun numeroon käy ilmi, että pomo on hänen Manhattanilta tuttu työnantajansa David Koffman, joka on laajentamassa menestyvää limusiinibisnestään länsirannikolle. Koffman palkkaa Brunon Dav-Kon Hollywoodin toimipisteen johtajaksi yhdellä ehdolla: Brunon täytyy pysyä kuivilla. Toisin käy: menestyksekäs limusiinibisnes ja vuoristoratamainen suhde hyvinkuurattuun silikoniblondizombiin, englantilaiseen keskuksenhoitajaan Portiaan ajaa Brunon päihteiden, seksiseikkailujen ja muistikatkosten täyttämään kierteeseen. Ja lopulta voittaakseen vanhat tutut demoninsa Danten on pakko kohdata oma hulluutensa.Aasin kaviot on neljäs itsenäinen osa Bruno Danten tarinasta. Sammakolta on edelleen saatavana myös aiemmat Bruno Dante -romaanit: Aasin vaihteet, Pönttö ja Pilvien pesijä.