Ask The Dust

New York: Bantam Books, 1954. First Bantam Edition . Mass Market Paperback. Very Good. 4 1/4" X 7. 138 Pages. Bantam # 1194. Complete and Unabridged. Copyright 1939. A Bantam Book published by arrangement with Little, Brown & Company, Inc. Printing History - Originally published by Stackpole Sons 1939. Bantam Edition Published February 1954. 1st Printing January 1954. Very minor cover edge and corner wear. There is some evidence of light moisture exposure to a 3 x 3 inch area at the bottom next to the spine. This is not visible but can be detected by lightly rubbing across this area and a bit of stiffness to page turning of some of the first 50 pages. Red page edges are about 50% faded and a bit more pronounced at the bottom area near the spine. Just a hint of age-tanning to pages. Glue binding is holding remarkably well. No marks or stamps to this tight square book with bright covers. Fante has been compared to Steinbeck and even Hemingway. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye was published six years after this book and many note the similarities between Holden Caulfield and Fante's Arturo Bandini. Ask the Dust is a semi-autobiography set in the dust bowl depression era and the migration to California and Los Angeles. Fante uses his background of Italian immigrant Catholic family life, sports, and the writing life in his fiction. Ask the Dust has been popular since it was first published and some 60 years afterwards it found its way to the New York Times best seller list when the Black Sparrow Press reprint was released. Both Kerouac and Bukowski have acknowledged Fante's influence and in a reprint preface Bukowski wrote that Fante is my God. No doubt John Fante will be rememberd as one of the top American novelist of the 20th century. Scans and additional description available on request. From the covers - He was young, broke and driven by a raging thirst for life. I wasn't starving. I still had some old oranges under the bed. That night I ate three or four and with the darkness I walked down Bunker Hill to the downtown district. Across the street from the Columbia Buffet. I stood in a shadowed doorway and watched Camilla Lopez. She was the same, dressed in the same smock. I trembled when I saw her and a strange feeling went over me. It was a hot night. Oh, Camilla! Camilla! Mine!.