SOURCE: Gardaphe, Fred. “A Man of the Ages.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (16 April 2000): 21-2.

In the following review, Gardaphe praises Fante's portrayal of the Italian-American experience in his fiction and assesses his literary accomplishments.

If the Italian immigrant experience has a presence beyond the mythic Mafia of Mario Puzo, it is through the short stories and novels of John Fante. While he has never been a highly recognized American writer, by 1940 when he was 21, Fante had already published two novels, Wait Until Spring, Bandini and Ask the Dust, as well as half of his lifetime production of short stories in national magazines such as the American Mercury, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Bazaar and Scribner's Magazine, many of which were published in his first short story collection, Dago Red. Until recently, there was little we knew about this author's life, aside from what we could glean from his highly...