The Wine of Youth by John Fante

The Wine of Youth by John Fante

This new edition of the legendary Dago Red, first published in 1940, contains seven new stories, including "A Nun No More" and "My Father's God."

"A group of sketches, rather than short stories, by the author of Wait Until Spring, Bandini. Fante to me captures the lusty, violent, warmhearted, passionate spirit of his Italian-American compatriots far better than any writer. There's none of the turgidity, the sensationalism, the "instinctual grunts" of di Donato. Here is one family, almost certainly Fante's -- the arrogant, swaggering male father; the worn gentle mother who cries about everything concerning God and her children; and the boys, good-bad roughnecks at the parochial school, at communion, at home. And underneath it all one senses Fante's deep affection, which includes a certain humorous tolerance, for these simple, fervent, hot-tempered people." -Kirkus Reviews

John Fante began writing in 1929, and his first short tale was published in 1932. Wait Till Spring, Bandini, his debut novel, was published in 1938 and is the first in the Arturo Bandini series, which also includes The Journey to Los Angeles and Ask the Dust. In 1955, he was diagnosed with diabetes after a long career as a screenwriter. In 1978, complications from the condition resulted in his blindness and, two years later, the amputation of both legs. In 1982, he released Dreams from Bunker Hill, the concluding volume of the Arturo Bandini series, by dictation to his wife, Joyce. At the age of seventy-four, he died on May 8, 1983.