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Ask the Dust (1939), the second novel in John Fante's Arturo Bandini series, is a semi-autobiographical tale of ambition, love, and disappointment in Los Angeles during the Great Depression. A classic of American literature, discovered thanks to Bukowski.
The main character, Arturo Bandini, a young Italian-American writer from Colorado, comes to Bunker Hill looking for fame. Poor and hungry, he lives on oranges and cheap wine, he writes stories that rarely pass, facing the rejections of editors and the urban dust of the city. In the Columbia Buffet bar, he meets Camilla Lopez, a beautiful Mexican woman, and falls in stormy love: a mixture of passion, hatred and obsession. Arturo idealizes her as a "Mayan princess," but their relationship is torn apart by racism, class differences, and his insecurities—culminating in violence and a tragic end for Camilla. At the same time, he meets Vera Rivkin, a rich Jewish woman who seduces him and inspires him for the novel, and Sammy, a tuberculous bartender, a western dreamer. Themes: the desire for success against reality, destructive love, the identity crisis of migrants, racism and the self-destruction of artists. Fante's language is poetic, ironic and raw, full of humor and sadness, celebrating LA as myth and hell. Bandini matures through suffering, realizing that dreams turn to dust, but remains faithful to writing.
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