Wait Until Spring, Bandini, by John Fante

Fans of Charles Bukowski are the people most likely to be familiar with John Fante's work, for despite the critical admiration his work garners, this late author has remained very much a cult figure. To anyone who has read his prose, this is a mystery. A tragi-comic tale from the author's son in the introduction to this novel does help to explain matters, from a financial perspective. In Wait Until Spring, Bandini, the first in a quartet of novels concerning a family of Italian immigrants in America (and in particular the eldest son, Arturo), the writing is incredibly fresh, the clipped style immediately engaging. Fante deals with similar issues to other American literary heavyweights, including poverty, racism and the ever-elusive American Dream. However, his subject matter is always intensely personal, even close to the bone – Fante never allows the novel to become grandiose or abstract. Instead, he portrays the mundane tragedies and agonies which comprise the characters' lives on a daily basis. While the narrator inhabits the minds of the individual characters, it is the tense love-hate dynamic between the family members which makes the novel fascinating. Fante deserves a much wider audience, however belated. [Lauren O'Rourke]