Well-written, unsentimental biography, 19 Mar 2004

By	-meaulnes- (UK) - See all my reviews

Cooper is obviously a big fan of Fante, but he doesn't let that get in the way of his honest appraisal of the man. It is clear from Cooper's book that Fante could often be cruel and tyrannical as well as loving and excitable. The man portrayed here is the kind of man you would have expected to create the emotionally-charged characters Arturo Bandini and his Italian immigrant brick-laying father. Indeed, in this biography, in his early years Fante comes across as the real-life incarnation of Bandini, and in his later years, perhaps appropriately, he comes to partially resemble the tyrannical father figures of his work.

Another reason this biography is so fascinating is that Fante lived through a lot of upheavals in the history of America, such as the Depression, the Second World War and the Communist witch-hunts in Hollywood in the 1950s. Readers interested in writers and the process of writing will also find a lot to interest them here, as will people fascinated with Hollywood and the processes behind the movie industry. Central to the biography is the sadness felt by most fans of Fante's work, and obviously shared by Cooper, that he didn't gain the recognition as a writer that he deserved, and that he was forced to spend so much of his life churning out Hollywood scripts, a lot of which were never used.

Reading this book you get the impression that Fante never really gave up on his writing, and the section in which Cooper describes the older Fante, stricken with blindess, reciting his last ever novel to his wife, will give any fan of his work a pang of sadness. Reading this book, I was quite surprised to learn that Fante was actually still alive when there was a resurgence of interest in his work, partly inspired by one of his biggest fans, Charles Bukowski. It made me feel glad that Fante finally saw some late vindication of his novels (long after the initial interest in his early work fizzled out), but there is also a sadness to this turn of events because Fante was already nearing the end of his life.

This is a well-researched, well-written look at a fascinating figure who produced one of the classics of twentieth century American literature ("Ask the Dust"). It is also a very important book, and a step in the right direction of promoting awareness of an excellent writer who has been forgotten for too long.

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