The John Fante Reader

by John Fante

  I have sent my dark suit to the cleaners. It needed some repair. I have decided that I can’t afford to buy any clothes at all. Not even a shirt. I’ll wait until I get more money. Yesterday in Long Beach I went to the hotel at which I stayed and starved this summer. I got my boxful of old clothes, and I found a good shirt, a half dozen pairs clean sox, a half dozen handkerchiefs, and a pair of brown shoes. Also that pair of britches you bought for me when in Wilmington, at Schwartz’s. The pants are shot to hell now, but I can wear them around the apartment here.

  I suppose that somewhere in the newspapers you have come across the name Lloyd S. Nix, the former assistant prosecutor of Los Angeles County. Well, I have an appointment with the gentleman next Wednesday at his office, when I am going to discuss some material for magazine articles. I hope everything goes through satisfactorily. If it does, it will mean some good money for me.

  I have begun to do some more work on short stories, and I think I’ll have another in the mail by Thursday or Friday. The story looks good and if it sells, it’ll mean a goodly sized check. In her letter, Grace tells me that everybody at the Campiglias read my story, Home Sweet Home. And everybody liked it.

  I think I told you in an earlier letter that I saw Susie on the streets of Long Beach. I don’t know about the rest of the relatives. I suppose it’s customary to keep in touch with them, but I haven’t, and it isn’t likely that I shall.

  Please let me know about everyone and everything. I shall look forward to a long letter from you.

  Best love to all,

  Johnnie

  932 South Lake Street,

  Los Angeles, Calif.

  JANUARY 18, 1933

  Dear Mother,

  Just a short note, written from my Long Beach headquarters. Incidentally, the rain is coming down in a terrific gust here, and it has been raining all night. The air is cold as ice. But they say the farmers need the rain. Well, they can have all of it, every last drop as far as I’m concerned. […]

  I am enclosing to you a letter from Alfred A. Knopf, which I wish you would return to me when you write. This letter is a response to one I wrote him. I wrote him last week, and I asked him for some advance royalties on a book I want to write, but which I cannot begin until I get enough money to keep me going for about six months. As you will see by the enclosed letter from Knopf, he is at least interested, and it’s possible, though not absolutely certain, that I may be able to squeeze $500 in advance from him on my projected book. The synopsis which he asks for, I have finished. (A synopsis is a brief outline of the book.) Before I send it to him, I am having a Los Angeles lawyer friend go over it with me, so that should Knopf like my synopsis, and offer me a contract, there won’t be any mistakes made. However, everything depends on what reaction Knopf takes to my synopsis. He may not like it, and if so, I’ll have to try another publisher. However, a letter from him like mine is considered quite a compliment among writers, so my chances may be pretty good. Of course, I’ll let you know immediately I hear from Knopf. Be sure to return the letter.

  My scenario with M.G.M. is still out there, and I haven’t heard a word about It. It was probably rejected. When you don’t hear from them immediately it means, as a rule, that they have decided not to take a story. Well, I’m not discouraged. I have plenty of time, and I’m learning every day.

  Best of love,

  Your son

  J. Fante

  Write me:

  John Fante,

  705 Fay Building,

  Los Angeles., Calif.

  19: FEB: 33

  LOS ANGELES

  Dear Mother,

  Not much to say except that today is hot here in Los Angeles, probably the hottest day of the new year. I am in my room, at work on a short story that doesn’t seem to be turning out very well. I worked all yesterday afternoon on it and an hour today, but I can’t seem to get the right spirit into it. I know how such things go, however, and the knack of it will come to me soon.

  Yesterday I sent you a scissor cut silhouette of myself. I had it done by a fellow downtown. I was simply curious, but I think he did a pretty good job of me.

  I am enclosing a letter from Alfred Knopf which I know you will enjoy reading. Incidentally, in response to Knopf’s terms, I wrote him and asked him for $75 a month for the next seven months. This will be in the form of an advance loan, and will be deducted from the sale royalties of the book I write. I am having my agent in New York handle the business end of this for me. But whether or not my terms are acceptable to Knopf, I really haven’t the slightest idea. These are hard times, and a publisher doesn’t like to take chances with people who are as young as me. […]

  Say, Mother. What do you think about me going back to Denver? I have wanted to go there to write my novel, and I have been considering it for some time. I know that I could write a better book in Denver, due to the fact that the scene of the story is laid in Colorado. As you can probably guess, a man can write better about an incident if he is on the ground where it took place, and that’s the way I feel about my novel. Let me know what you think about it.

  I must make this letter short and sweet. See you later. …

  {To Carey McWilliams}

  {Roseville, California}

  {c. summer 1933}

  Dear Carey,

  Here’s where I cut loose. As you see, this is pretty long for a letter, but it has to be. I’ve got a lot to say. The only reason I can show for writing you rather than anyone else is that I think you’ll understand better. I’ll put it this way: if I knew Mencken (you know what I think of him) as well as I know you, I should be writing this letter to him. But if a Mencken can’t be addressed, and a McWilliams can, then to hell with the Menckens and all hail the McWilliams’. So be it.

  You have probably guessed right. I am having trouble with my book. Today I tore up about sixty thousand words, the toil of three months. I was absolutely fed up. I am still. I wish I knew positively what the matter is. I can’t put my finger on it. There’s something wrong—something changing in me. And I don’t know what to call it, nor where to find it. The work I destroyed was not good work. I could see it. I was losing faith in it every day from the beginning. The badness of it all didn’t seem to increase, and I didn’t rebel by degrees. I tore up that work very deliberately. It was hollow, artificial. I started it with a tricky style, found the thing easy to write, and went ahead. I hammered away day after day, just pouring words. It wasn’t good stuff. I knew all along that I was playing a trick. Not a trick on Knopf or anyone. But on myself. I have that feeling about writing. I know when I am honest and when I am cheating. The idea is this: Outwardly, characteristically, everywhere but in print I am something of a charlatan. In my relations with people obviously my intellectual inferiors, I play the wise guy. Needless to say, I don’t try any tricks on a fellow like you. I’m smart enough to know that you’re smarter. But with others I get away with it. My implication here is not of physical dishonesty. I’m not a thief—but of smartaleckery. A wise kid. The white-haired boy. I practice that nonsense a lot. I usually get away with it. I strut abnormally. I know it’s a stupid and dangerous kind of play but I do it anyhow. The result is that in print, I am brutally honest, just the opposite of the wise guy in real life. (As you see, I know myself pretty well.) Now in my book, the wise guy and not my real self is writing. The result horrifies me. I think what I have written is putrid, and the wise guy, the white haired boy, the kid who “made” the Mercury when he was twenty, and such disgusting hooey as that is the guy who is so plain in every sentence of this first novel that I would rather go to jail than have people read the book, because there is no truth in it. I don’t mean autobiographical fact. I mean something else. I don’t know what you would call it, but it’s different from autobiography, yet it’s very much like it. It’s that feeling you get when you begin to write something you really love, that feeling of being in a stream and floating on and on without stopping. I don’t think I have made this very clear, but the best
I can say is that when you write a letter, but in this vein that I speak of, you have a very keen satisfaction in what you’re doing. You don’t worry about plots and dramatic sequences. They come quite naturally. You simply write and write, and lo! By God, there’s a story, and a swell story. I know that feeling. If I don’t have it, I write like the white haired boy. Fuck him!

  Well, I have destroyed my work to date, this novel based on my family life. I think I made a mistake in coming to Roseville and being night and day with my family. My mother was here all the time. It was very annoying. Here’s a situation for you. A man sits in a room writing a story about his mother. There are episodes in that story which have to do with the secretest events in that mother’s life. And in the room this guy writes. And in the next room sits this guy’s mother with a rosary in her hand. And what is she doing, but praying for the success of that story. Jesus Christ! If you only knew what that does to a man. It makes him feel that his guts are hanging out. I have had enough of it. I’m moving back to Los Angeles.

  I am going to begin again. But I don’t want to work day and night on this book. I want something else to do. I still have about 200 bucks coming from Knopf, and I can at least get started again. But I would like to take a rest for two weeks. Just loaf around. Do nothing but walk the streets. See people, talk, have a drink, in short, do everything that can’t be done on $200.

  You see, Carey, I’ve worked hard. I’ve written myself dry. I was forcing it, and the result was never satisfying. The dissatisfaction plus the effort has made a physical wreck out of me. I have what may be called a lot of stupid ideas about writing, but it won’t do any good to tell me they’re stupid. I have to find out for myself. In the meantime Knopf awaits his novel. I’m in a horrible mess. I think I am, I mean. Maybe I am taking it too seriously. I sometimes think I have overestimated my own importance and significance. I really don’t know for sure. Perhaps I should be digging ditches. I don’t know.

  However you feel about this letter, I do hope you’ll try to see that it’s sincere. I am very glad for the unrequested privilege of writing you, and the way I feel is that soon or late someone will have had to listen.

  If I force myself on you, well, I can at least say that I know how to pick the wise listeners, and if you don’t mind, I would appreciate some good, old-fashioned paternal advice when I get to town. I have to admit it, but I need so goddamn much of it, and I don’t know where to get it, and waxing poetical for a moment, I say that I’d scale the highest mountain to get it.

  My trouble is that I have had it too easy in the last three months. I did no physical labor at all. I did nothing more than write my own book. This was too much for me. Too luxurious. Oh, the book was work, but the circumstances were far too serene. I was too cocky. I was a “novelist.” Hey! hey!

  I should like to know what you think of this that I’ve written, and what you can suggest. My idea is to get a job when I get to the South. I don’t want the money, but the discipline, and if I could afford it, I’d pay my own wages on a job, so that my day of working and writing would balance. I want to go to work on Main street, washing dishes. Any goddamn thing. Then I shall write my book slowly, coming to it fresh each day. It will take longer to write, but I want to do a good piece of work. Something I can be proud of. I could sit down and knock off a bad story in two weeks, but that’s not the idea. And it’s not the money, either. I want to get that “feeling.” I hesitate to call it inspiration because the man who uses the word inspiration is usually a fellow who mouths aspirations, “My Jesus, mercy!” etc.

  My deepest thanks for reading this over, Carey. I hope you’ll form some sort of a judgement and let me know what it is. More than any other thing, I’m willing to listen to good advice, and can recognize it when it is good. I’ll drop in and see you shortly after I get into town. I’ll phone and find out when you’re not so busy. I’ll be on my way there by the time this letter reaches you.

  Confidentially,

  J. Fante

  OCTOBER 27 1933

  Dear Mother,

  All goes well with me. My novel is now in its last stages; I’m coming into the home stretch as far as the hard work is concerned and in a month I’ll be finished with the first draft, which is the hardest work, by far, of the whole process. After that, the rest is simply a matter of polishing up and re-setting for the publisher. I feel very good about it, despite the fact that I still have a lot of work ahead of me. […]

  We had another earthquake last Monday night at eleven o’clock. It was a sudden jolt, very abrupt, and ended quickly. I was in a theater; it was a minute or so after eleven o’clock. The walls shook and the crossbeams creaked. That was all. I got up, though, and left the theater and walked to the park, where I sat down. The quakes still scare the living hell out of me. I don’t suppose there’s any cure for the fear I have. […]

  DECEMBER 3RD, 1933

  Dear Mother,

  It is beginning to show cold signs in these parts. The nights are often very very cold. Here in my room though it is always warm. I have a gas heater which I keep burning constantly, and if it weren’t for that I’d probably have to quit writing because in the mornings my fingers are so stiff from cold that I can’t touch a typewriter. Incidentally, I have a very nice room. Papered in brown and with a number of appropriate pictures on the walls it’s typically a man’s room. I think of all the places I have lived in Los Angeles it is the most satisfying, and as long as I remain here in the future I am going to stay in this hotel. I have four big brown leather chairs here in the room and three fine lamps. A rag-weave carpet covers the floor, that is—of course—when I can see the floor. A stranger walking in here would be sure to think that my carpet was made of typewriter paper. Scattered everywhere, I have to wade in it up to my knees. I never seem to find the right thing when I look for it in this place. Books are piled everywhere, and I hang my clothes on the bed, on door knobs, over chairs, and usually toss them on the floor. There’s no hope for me ever being an orderly person. The fellow who cleans my room will tell you that I’m the most disorderly guest that ever lived in this hotel. But he likes me, and he doesn’t seem to mind the disorder. He says that a person who throws his stuff around as I do is usually a good fellow, and one who is not likely to raise hell the minute something isn’t perfect. […]

  Don’t be alarmed about the visit of my friend Charles Green. He’s really not such a bad fellow and as a co-worker on manuscripts he’s a great help to me. As for his hell-raising, there is nothing in it out of the ordinary. I think all writers are that way. At least, I have found them so. Writers like to boast and do sensational things. They talk a lot and make a lot of noise, but at bottom they’re really a bunch of overgrown children who will never grow up. I suppose if they ever did grow up they’d stop writing. […]

  Love,

  Johnnie

  note the new address-temporary, of course.

  255 Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, Calif.

  SUNDAY, JULY 22, 1934

  Dearest Mother,

  I planned to write this letter last Thursday, and I don’t know why I didn’t do it. I was so glad to hear that Tommy is not discouraged in his search for a job. He has nothing to fear. If he is persistent, and I know he will be, he will find himself in a successful position before long. Perhaps it would be best for him to stay away from college for a year. He is still so young that one year can’t matter so much, and in the meantime he can be earning enough money for his return. I hate to see him lose any time at all, but the situation has got to be faced squarely. I only hope to God I get a good break in this town. If I do, you may be sure that I’ll be ever so happy to share it with Tommy and all of you. There are so many excellent institutions down here that Tommy would find it a swell place to finish his education. Above all, there is Loyola University. And I think he ought to have at least one year of Catholic philosophy. I don’t mean this as a necessary part of his religious education, but simply as a basis for contrast with other non-Catholic philosophi
c systems. Pete too would find Loyola University better to his liking than any other school on the Pacific Coast.

  And how is Pete getting along? I wish he would write me a letter. I would write him first, but for me letter-writing has come to be a dreadful job which I am constantly putting off. Tell Pete to get busy and let me have at least a short note. Did Josephine get a job at the cannery? I read something about cannery strikes in that region the other day, but I was not sure it concerned the canneries near Roseville. For Jo’ s and Tommy’s sake, I hope not, although my sympathies lean toward strikers in most of their demands.

  I finished a short story today and shall mail it tomorrow. I am deluged with all kinds of work and could keep busy all the time but this weather is hardly suitable for a man who works with his brain. After a couple of hours in the sunshine at the beach it takes a terrific amount of will-power to sit down before a typewriter and mumble and muse over a literary product. Our movie story is coming along nicely. We have had to do some revision and expect to have it ready for submission sometime this week. I shall also have another short story in the mail this week. Last week I sent out an old story which I rewrote. My agent now has it. Incidentally, he wrote me last week about the possibility of selling a story to one of the big national women’s magazines. They pay large prices, and it would please me to hit their market. I am very worried about my novel. I haven’t had time to go to work on the re-writing, and though Knopf has never complained, I don’t like to hold him off too long. Things have been so hard with me though—money and all—that I have been forced to put off the work. I lose nothing by it, but I would love to have the work off my hands so that I could stop worrying and start another book.

  I shall write Doctor McAnally immediately after I finish this letter, and thank him for being so good to our family. I know he would appreciate a note from me. Give my best love and encouragement to Papa, and all my love to you and my brothers and sister.