John Fante's Ask the Dust

Stephen Cooper (Edited By) Stephen Cooper is Professor of English, California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante (Angel City Press, 2005). Clorinda Donato (Edited By) Clorinda Donato is the George L. Graziadio Chair of Italian Studies at California State University, Long Beach. She co-wrote The “Encyclopédie Méthodique” in Spain.

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