P.S.
4 total works
Bruno Dante has cleaned him himself up and straightened out; he's attending A.A. and is back on the mooch, selling computer printer supplies for a militaristic disciplinarian in a company staffed by a motley crew of ex-addicts and alcoholics. Then he meets Mexican femme fatale, Jimmi Valiente, a former gang-banger, lap dancer, and crackhead, and once again Dante's world begins to go into free fall.
Bruno Dante, aspirant playwright, part-time depressive and long-time drunk has hitch-hiked cross country. Escaping the sunshine, have-a-nice-day culture of LA, for the more cynical climate of New York.
He should fit right in. But if there's money for beer he's sure to fuck up.
A rut of deadbeat tempting jobs follow. But Dante won't play office politics or kiss ass. So they don't last long. Longer stints as the night manager of a run-down hotel, a window cleaner and, finally, a cabbie, are punctuated by whacked-out affairs, drinking binges and bouts of depression.
Beautiful and brutal in equal measures, Fante's insights are fiercely compelling, desperately compassionate and obscenely funny. This is utterly unmissable.
He should fit right in. But if there's money for beer he's sure to fuck up.
A rut of deadbeat tempting jobs follow. But Dante won't play office politics or kiss ass. So they don't last long. Longer stints as the night manager of a run-down hotel, a window cleaner and, finally, a cabbie, are punctuated by whacked-out affairs, drinking binges and bouts of depression.
Beautiful and brutal in equal measures, Fante's insights are fiercely compelling, desperately compassionate and obscenely funny. This is utterly unmissable.
Chump Change is a largely autobiographical novel and as such is a moving homage to the author's father John Fante, the acclaimed LA novelist who so heavily influenced and inspired Charles Bukowski. Chump Change tracks three crazy weeks in the turbulent, alcohol-bingeing life of Bruno Dante as he awaits the death of his father, Jonathan Dante, a talented fiction writer who in later life sells his soul for Hollywood gold. The result is a harrowing descent through a Hollywood hell that roars with anger at the falseness of American values and is both deadpan hilarious and deeply moving.