Possessing a style of deceptive simplicity, emotional immediacy and tremendous p
sychological point, among the novels, short stories and screenplays that complet
e his career, Fante's crowning accomplishment is the Arturo Bandini tetralogy. T
his quartet of novels tell of Fante's fictional alter-ego Bandini, an impoverish
ed young Italian-American escaping his suffocating home in Colorado for Depressi
on-era Los Angeles. In the beginning, it is the triple weights of poverty, fathe
r and Church that Bandini struggles under but though the physical escape is comp
lete, the psychological imprint continues as he comes to terms with love, desire
and the knowledge his talent may not be recognised.
