Novelist's 'Road' Ends at UCLA

The great John Fante was a successful screenwriter but something of a failed novelist…commercially, at least. Then, in the 1970s and ‘80s, brilliant authors such as Charles Bukowski and Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne began singing the praises of Fante, best known for his 1939 novel Ask the Dust (which Towne turned into a 2006 film starring Salma Hayek and Colin Farrell).

Fante, in his handful of novels, romanticized the downtown Los Angeles of his youth—a downtown that no longer exists—and became something of a pioneer of Los Angeles literature. Only the book Full of Life became a commercial hit; Fante adapted his novel into a 1956 film that starred Judy Holliday, which also proved a big success. And yet, his cult as a novelist has grown over the decades since his 1983 death.

“He was a great writer and, in many ways, ahead of his time,” Stephen Cooper, John Fante’s official biographer and author of the 2001 biography Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante, told Westwood/Century-City Patch. “Whatever recognition his works continue to earn is as timely as it can be, as new readers catch up with the past. “

Cooper, who teaches the MFA creative writing program at California State University, Long Beach, noted that since the dedication of John Fante Square in Fante’s much-rhapsodized downtown L.A., a lot has transpired in Fante scholarship.

“John Fante's papers, 30-plus linear feet of original literary manuscripts, screenplays, television scripts, treatments, diaries, letters, and other materials both personal and professional, have been archived at UCLA's Department of Special Collections in the Charles E. Young Research Library,” Cooper said. “A finding aid to the collection is now available at the Online Archive of California.”

The UCLA Archive endeavor is significant, Cooper continued, because “for years, access to the papers was restricted. Now that UCLA is home to the collection, it will be open to researchers seeking new approaches among other things to twentieth-century American literature, the Hollywood film industry, and of course Fante's life and works; the scholarship should grow accordingly.”

For scholars such as Cooper, “already this means more work for me, which is a good thing. For example, I am co-chairing the dissertation committee of UCLA grad student Daniel Gardner, who is using the papers to write his Ph.D thesis, and who will go on to teach Fante to generations of students.”

On Thursday, March 10, Cooper will deliver the Bonnie Cashin Endowed Lecture, one in a series dedicated to celebrating the creative process. The title of this invitation-only event is The Road to John Fante's Los Angeles: A Biographer Reflects.

"Steve Cooper was instrumental in creating awareness about John Fante's life and career in his biography Full of Life," said the late novelist's daughter, Victoria Fante Cohen, who will attend the lecture. "Steve is well spoken, intelligent, educated, and handsome. Steve gained my mother's confidence, allowing him access to the information available to creatively assemble a wonderful biography."

For Fante fans out there outside of the academic realm, this private event is great news because it will herald an exhibit of materials from the John Fante Collection that will open very soon, on a date yet to be determined, this spring at UCLA's Department of Special Collections. The Fante Collection will be free to the public and run through June 2011.