John Fante’s Ask the Dust

This volume assembles for the first time a staggering multiplicity of reflections and readings of John Fante’s 1939 classic, Ask the Dust, a true testament to the work’s present and future impact.

The contributors to this work—writers, critics, fans, scholars, screenwriters, directors, and others—analyze the provocative set of diaspora tensions informing Fante’s masterpiece that distinguish it from those accounts of earlier East Coast migrations and minglings. A must-read for aficionados of L.A. fiction and new migration literature, John Fante’s “Ask the Dust”: A Joining of Voices and Views is destined for landmark status as the first volume of Fante studies to reveal the novel’s evolving intertextualities and intersectionalities.

Contributors: Miriam Amico, Charles Bukowski, Stephen Cooper, Giovanna DiLello, John Fante, Valerio Ferme, Teresa Fiore, Daniel Gardner, Philippe Garnier, Robert Guffey, Ryan Holiday, Jan Louter, Chiara Mazzucchelli, Meagan Meylor, J’aime Morrison, Nathan Rabin, Alan Rifkin, Suzanne Manizza Roszak, Danny Shain, Robert Towne, Joel Williams

Introduction | 1

1. New Approaches to John Fante’s Ask the Dust

From the Particular to the Universal: Vittorini’s Italian
Adaptation of Ask the Dust | 15
Valerio Ferme

When Spirituality Ebbs and Flows: Religion and Diasporic
Alienation in Ask the Dust | 43
Suzanne Manizza Roszak

“Sad Flower in the Sand”: Camilla Lopez and the Erasure
of Memory in Ask the Dust | 58
Meagan Meylor

“A Ramona in Reverse”: Writing the Madness of the Spanish
Past in Ask the Dust | 83
Daniel Gardner

2. Sibling Arts: Ask the Dust in Dance, Music,
the Graphic Novel, and French

Dancing with the Dust: Translating Ask the Dust to the Stage | 111
J’aime Morrison
Ask the Lyrics: John Fante in Music | 127
Chiara Mazzucchelli

Watch Out or You’ll End up in My Novel: The Lost World
of Ask the Dust | 145
Robert Guffey
Don’t Ask the French | 157
Philippe Garnier

3. Ask the Dust and Its Effects: Readers and Writers Respond

Amid the Dust | 167
Miriam Amico

The Passion That Became a Festival | 177
Giovanna DiLello

I Had Bandini: Reading Ask the Dust in Prison | 193
Joel Williams

Writing in the Dust | 201
Alan Rifkin

How Hitler Nearly Destroyed the Great American Novel | 213
Ryan Holiday

4. Ask the Dust and Its Due: Two Filmmakers and Bukowski Pay Tribute

Interview with Robert Towne | 237
Nathan Rabin

Letters from Los Angeles | 245
Jan Louter

“My Dear Bukowski,” “Hello John Fante”: Preface to Ask the Dust | 261
John Fante and Charles Bukowski

5. The Attic, the Archive, and Beyond

From Family to Institutional Memory: A Conversation
with Stephen Cooper | 273
Teresa Fiore

Prelude to “Prologue to Ask the Dust” | 281
Stephen Cooper

Goodbye, Bunker Hill | 290
John Fante

The Road to John Fante’s Los Angeles | 296
Stephen Cooper

Acknowledgments | 315

List of Contributors | 319

Bibliography | 325

Index | 331