John Fante (1909-1983) is a classic of American literature of the twentieth century, who came to the modern reader rather late. The honor of its rediscovery belongs to another great outcast of belles-lettres - Charles Bukowski: “... Like a man who found gold in a city dump, I went with the book to the table. The lines rolled easily across the page, one continuous flow. Each line beat with its own energy, and behind it another line, and another, and another. The very substance of each line gave the page its shape, as if something had been carved into it. Here, finally, was a man who was not afraid of emotion. Humor and pain were intertwined with amazing simplicity. The beginning of this book appeared to me as a wild and impossible miracle...”