Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing, Drinking and Surviving

"Dan Fante is an authentic literary outlaw." —New York Times

From Dan Fante, son of novelist John Fante, comes a gripping memoir and an exploration of his family’s literary legacy—one of boozing, passion, writing, and survival. Long before his father, a legendary Hollywood screenwriter, achieved literary recognition for Ask the Dust or The Road to Los Angeles, and before Dan had conceived his novels 86’d, Chump Change, and Mooch, their difficult relationship as father and son evolved in a household where love and literary artistry were often overshadowed by emotional violence. Fante is the story of Dan’s struggle to find his own voice amidst the madness of his family’s dark inheritance, a memoir of his escape from his own vices in a powerful story of addiction and recovery, and his eventual return to Los Angeles to embrace the man—and the calling—that once had driven him away.

This unflinching memoir, in the tradition of Charles Bukowski, peels back the layers of a complicated literary family.

• A Father’s Shadow: Go inside the difficult, alcohol-fueled relationship between Dan and his celebrated father, Ask the Dust author John Fante.
• Literary Outlaw Inheritance: Discover the Fante family legacy of passion, emotional violence, and the desperate struggle for a son to find his own voice.
• The Writing Life: A raw, behind-the-scenes look at two authors, the glamour and grit of old Hollywood, and the world that inspired literary legends.
• Survival and Sobriety: Follow Dan’s escape from his own vices in a powerful journey from the depths of alcoholism to his embrace of the calling that once drove him away.