Wait Until Spring, Bandini

Description

For Arturo Bandini, oldest son of Italian immigrants living in small-town Colorado during the Great Depression, the winter proves harsh. When his father seemingly abandons his family, Arturo is left to pick up the pieces, even as turmoil rages within him. With its evocative account of grinding poverty, tragic love affairs and tumultuous adolescence, this first novel from the Bandini quartet is a much-neglected masterpiece of modern American literature. Introduced by Dan Fante.

Born in Denver on 8 April 1909, John Fante migrated to Los Angeles in his early twenties. Classically out of place in a town built on celluloid dreams, Fante's literary fiction was full of torn grace and redemptive vengeance. Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1938), his first novel, began the saga of Arturo Bandini, a character whose story continues in The Road to Los Angeles, Ask the Dust and Dreams from Bunker Hill - collectively known as The Bandini Quartet. Fante published several other novels, as well as stories, novellas and screenplays in his seventy-four years, including The Brotherhood of the Grape (1977) and 1933 Was A Bad Year (posthumously, 1985). He was posthumously recognised in 1987 with a Lifetime Achievement Award by PEN in Los Angeles, four years after his death from diabetes-related complications.

Bandini is a magnificent creation, and his rediscovery is not before time * * Times Literary Supplement * * John Fante takes some beating . . . mean, moody, disturbing and intensely atmospheric * * The Times * * If you haven't yet discovered John Fante, you're in for a wonderful treat * * Evening Standard * * John Fante knew how to make words sing * * Uncut * * A lost classic of American literature . . . Evocative of a time with great parallels to our own, Fante's novel portrays youthful ennui and young love brilliantly * * Shortlist * *