---
product_id: 20805544
title: "Ask the Dust"
price: "$131275"
currency: COP
in_stock: null
reviews_count: 8
url: https://www.desertcart.co/products/20805544-ask-the-dust
store_origin: CO
region: Colombia
---

# Ask the Dust

**Price:** $131275
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- **What is this?** Ask the Dust
- **How much does it cost?** $131275 with free shipping
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## Description

desertcart.com: Ask the Dust: 9780060822552: Fante, John: Books

Review: Powerful, Moving, a Great California Novel - This is a great California novel. It is also a fine mainstream novel with noir overtones. I rank it with the best work of, e.g., Nathanael West, but since it is different in kind I would not attempt to judge it against the work of Chandler, Ellroy, Cain, et al., whose work is monumental in a different way. Ask the Dust is a book in the Arturo Bandini series. Bandini, a close stand-in for Fante himself, is a depression-era writer who has come to L.A. to do his work and find his fortune. He lives in the Bunker Hill neighborhood in a downscale residential hotel. Bandini meets a local waitress, Camilla Lopez, and falls for her. Hard. Unfortunately, Camilla loves another man, who does not reciprocate her love and Arturo is stalked/loved by a Jewish woman from Long Beach whose affections he does not reciprocate. Thus we have two love triangles and a relationship between the principals that is largely doomed from the get-go. The plot is simple: boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy temporarily gets girl; boy loses girl and seeks her (SPOILER) in the dust and grit of the Mojave desert. Beyond the basic plot, everything is voice and texture. Arturo’s story is one of striving, of desperation, of hunger, of momentary triumph, of loneliness, of singular opportunity and of recalcitrant reality, writ large. The story charts his feelings, his emotions, his angst, his high points and his low. What is it like, precisely, to be a depression-era writer trying to make it in L.A.? It is like this. What is it like to love someone on a nearly epic level, knowing that the relationship is going nowhere fast and is likely to end up in equally epic-level heartache? It is like this. Fante’s narrative voice is pitch-perfect and painful in its spare lyricism. This is the kind of writing for which the novel was created: to explore middle-class experience with the fervor and urgency previously reserved for Sophoclean and Shakespearean tragedy. It is a ‘writerly’ book, but readers should not be put off by that, fearing some hothouse, over-aestheticized bit of craft. The book drips with authenticity and explores the human heart in both neatly-understated and very, very powerful ways. This is the real deal. If you haven’t yet discovered John Fante, now’s your chance. (And read his personal story after you’ve read the novel. Prepare to be moved and a little shaken.)
Review: a great; haunting ending that leaves a sickness and a ... - Just finished. It has a powerful ending; a great; haunting ending that leaves a sickness and a longing and a reminder about the dark side of life. Being a Bukowski fan, I had been meaning to read this, and am glad that I did. It wasn't so much like Bukowski - but i see where Bukowski got a lot of his sparseness and the ways in which he structured his sentences. I think Bukowski was much funnier and had better characters and some brilliant one lines and new ways of saying things - however - this book had a strong dark message that leaves one very aware of life at the end; powerful. It reminded me of the movie Vertigo (but not as clever), or of an old film noir; something with Humphrey Bogart, but more raw and real. Of course there's also Hemingway similarities, short sparse lines and a certain type of character - however, less math and repetition and beautiful scenes that go on for pages, although some of Fante's imagery is great and its all very real for the kind of story that it is - as a writer myself - when it comes to the actual style of the writing - it's very plain and not at all brilliant or unique. Many of his chapter openings hit hard but some of the chapters fall short, imo. There are a few great lines worth highlighting, but not enough - however - on the positive side - the story itself is very well executed, the characters are great, everything flows very smoothly, its short and easy to read and leaves one with a wide array of interesting feelings and thoughts, and for a man who's been through similar situations - its worth the read. However - I will say this - as a writer myself - I saw somebody saying that Arturo Bandini is warm, and gentle - I didn't take him like that, although he kind of appears that way - yet he's certainly more mean than he even comes off toward Camilla if you pick up on more of the subtleties - bitter for certain, long before he's blessed with her ending. The character really embellishes and builds himself up and sets himself apart from the other in a certain way, but I guess that's his macho character, in certain ways that I think draw from the story - he doesn't show his more lowly or vulnerable side as good as I think he should have - but that's ok - there is still an honesty in how he identifies with his emotions, being used and unloved and still giving and traveling on through the broken dreams - but I also think the author has a more deceptive side that only certain other writers would get.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #26,661 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #227 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction #1,012 in Classic Literature & Fiction #2,077 in Literary Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,880 Reviews |

## Images

![Ask the Dust - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91na49l4-YL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Powerful, Moving, a Great California Novel
*by R***Z on January 22, 2014*

This is a great California novel. It is also a fine mainstream novel with noir overtones. I rank it with the best work of, e.g., Nathanael West, but since it is different in kind I would not attempt to judge it against the work of Chandler, Ellroy, Cain, et al., whose work is monumental in a different way. Ask the Dust is a book in the Arturo Bandini series. Bandini, a close stand-in for Fante himself, is a depression-era writer who has come to L.A. to do his work and find his fortune. He lives in the Bunker Hill neighborhood in a downscale residential hotel. Bandini meets a local waitress, Camilla Lopez, and falls for her. Hard. Unfortunately, Camilla loves another man, who does not reciprocate her love and Arturo is stalked/loved by a Jewish woman from Long Beach whose affections he does not reciprocate. Thus we have two love triangles and a relationship between the principals that is largely doomed from the get-go. The plot is simple: boy meets girl; boy loses girl; boy temporarily gets girl; boy loses girl and seeks her (SPOILER) in the dust and grit of the Mojave desert. Beyond the basic plot, everything is voice and texture. Arturo’s story is one of striving, of desperation, of hunger, of momentary triumph, of loneliness, of singular opportunity and of recalcitrant reality, writ large. The story charts his feelings, his emotions, his angst, his high points and his low. What is it like, precisely, to be a depression-era writer trying to make it in L.A.? It is like this. What is it like to love someone on a nearly epic level, knowing that the relationship is going nowhere fast and is likely to end up in equally epic-level heartache? It is like this. Fante’s narrative voice is pitch-perfect and painful in its spare lyricism. This is the kind of writing for which the novel was created: to explore middle-class experience with the fervor and urgency previously reserved for Sophoclean and Shakespearean tragedy. It is a ‘writerly’ book, but readers should not be put off by that, fearing some hothouse, over-aestheticized bit of craft. The book drips with authenticity and explores the human heart in both neatly-understated and very, very powerful ways. This is the real deal. If you haven’t yet discovered John Fante, now’s your chance. (And read his personal story after you’ve read the novel. Prepare to be moved and a little shaken.)

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ a great; haunting ending that leaves a sickness and a ...
*by D***R on February 17, 2016*

Just finished. It has a powerful ending; a great; haunting ending that leaves a sickness and a longing and a reminder about the dark side of life. Being a Bukowski fan, I had been meaning to read this, and am glad that I did. It wasn't so much like Bukowski - but i see where Bukowski got a lot of his sparseness and the ways in which he structured his sentences. I think Bukowski was much funnier and had better characters and some brilliant one lines and new ways of saying things - however - this book had a strong dark message that leaves one very aware of life at the end; powerful. It reminded me of the movie Vertigo (but not as clever), or of an old film noir; something with Humphrey Bogart, but more raw and real. Of course there's also Hemingway similarities, short sparse lines and a certain type of character - however, less math and repetition and beautiful scenes that go on for pages, although some of Fante's imagery is great and its all very real for the kind of story that it is - as a writer myself - when it comes to the actual style of the writing - it's very plain and not at all brilliant or unique. Many of his chapter openings hit hard but some of the chapters fall short, imo. There are a few great lines worth highlighting, but not enough - however - on the positive side - the story itself is very well executed, the characters are great, everything flows very smoothly, its short and easy to read and leaves one with a wide array of interesting feelings and thoughts, and for a man who's been through similar situations - its worth the read. However - I will say this - as a writer myself - I saw somebody saying that Arturo Bandini is warm, and gentle - I didn't take him like that, although he kind of appears that way - yet he's certainly more mean than he even comes off toward Camilla if you pick up on more of the subtleties - bitter for certain, long before he's blessed with her ending. The character really embellishes and builds himself up and sets himself apart from the other in a certain way, but I guess that's his macho character, in certain ways that I think draw from the story - he doesn't show his more lowly or vulnerable side as good as I think he should have - but that's ok - there is still an honesty in how he identifies with his emotions, being used and unloved and still giving and traveling on through the broken dreams - but I also think the author has a more deceptive side that only certain other writers would get.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Gritty Realism and Haunting Lyricism
*by A***A on October 21, 2007*

A poor, aspiring young writer moves into a decaying, once-genteel roomimg house in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles. Periodically on the verge of starvation, he nevertheless enjoys the warm climate of the city set next to a desert, works on his writing and looks at the stars. The stars tell him not to despair - that he's part of something vibrant and glorious. One fateful day he happens to go into a Mexican restaurant. In a letter to his cousin Fante described what happened as a result of that casual decision. He fell in love with a girl "who loved someone else, who in turn despised her. Strange story of a beautiful Mexican girl who somehow didn't fit into modern life...." The protagonist, Arturo Bandini, becomes obsessed with Camilla; and as he does so he goes through various stages of love: from shallow attraction to infatuation to compassionate love. At the beginning of the book he's completely self-centered. By the end of the book his love for the girl is almost wholly unselfish. This is especially moving, since he realizes after awhile that he means nothing to her and that she's just been using him all along to try to get close to another man. This bitter realization doesn't prevent him from moving heaven and earth to try to save her, even after she has a nervous breakdown. Mental illness had a much greater stigma in the 1930s than it does now. I think it's safe to say that most young men of that era would have siimply given up and walked away. Instead, Bandini is prepared to devote his life to her. As many reviewers have pointed out, "Ask the Dust" is a great Los Angeles book. In fact, the city itself - its streets, bars, cafes, boardinghouses, parks and skid row - is a major character in the book. The era the book describes is the 1930s, but as someone who lived near there thirty years later, I can attest to the timelessness of the feeling of the city. It's a strange mixture of gritty reality and poignant dreaminess. Fante captures this feeling perfectly. "Ask the Dust" also has one of the most lyrical, and haunting - and saddest - endings ever written. Some reviewers have been put off by the name-calling and ethnic epithets. Of course, Bandini would have been a more admirable character without them. But the writer's first duty is to tell the truth, even when it presents him in an unflattering light. And it's not what the book is about, any more than "Vanity Fair" is solely about Becky Sharp, Thackeray's great anti-heroine. "Ask the Dust," like "Vanity Fair" and "Of Human Bondage,"examines a basic problem of human existence: why do we love the people who don't love us? Put another way, why can't we love the people who do love us? And a larger question: why are some people doomed? A door opens, so that they can escape from the hell they're in. They can't go through it. Why? Ask the dust.

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*Product available on Desertcart Colombia*
*Store origin: CO*
*Last updated: 2026-02-20*