Fante's secrets revealed by his biographer

A movie from "Ask the Dust" and a discovery from "1933 was a Bad Year". Two pieces of news, exclusive gifts for il Centro from Stephen Cooper, a professor at Long Beach California State University, a guest yesterday in the Pescara offices of Il Centro, the Baruzzo daily paper. Stephen Cooper is one of the best connoisseurs of John Fante, the American novelist of Abruzzese origin. He authored the monumental biography "Full of Life", published in the United States in 1999 by North Point Press and in Italy two years later by Marcos y Marcos.

Cooper, who had never been to Italy before, could not miss a trip to Abruzzo to visit Pescara and Torricella Peligna (where he is due this morning). Escorted by Giovanna Di Lello, the author of the video "John Fante, a Writer's Profile" (presented last Monday at the Festival dei Popoli in Florence, in Cooper's presence), the biographer of the author of "Ask the Dust" and "1933 was a Bad Year" granted to il Centro the following interview, disclosing among other things that very soon Robert Towne (a Hollywood prominent screenplay writer, author of "Mission: Impossible II" , and a Fante lover) is making a film version of Fante's masterpiece. Bandini will be played by Colin Farrell, and Camilla by Salma Hayek.

Mr. Cooper, in your book you collect many anecdotes from John Fante's life, and one is very special for Abruzzese people. "Fante did come to Torricella Peligna, differently from what was usually thought, but he was frightened by the poverty, the mourning women, the non-welcoming glances by his father's folk. I found a detailed description of a trip from Rome to Torricella Peligna in a story. I think this is how he felt, though there is no mathematical proof, since he never left a trace of the visit. But we know quite well that his own life experiences inspired many of Fante's pages".

It is not fair, and often it is difficult to make rank classifications, but you are an English and cinema professor at the California State University in Long Beach. What is the position you would give to John Fante among American writers? "I think 'Ask the Dust' is on the same level as Hemingway's or Faulkner's best novels. Of course not all of Fante's works are on the same level. Personally, I deeply love 'The Road to Los Angeles', 'The Brotherhood of the Grape' and especially 'Full of Life'.

"What do you think of "Dreams from Bunker Hill"? "I think it is extraordinary for the way it is written, it looks to me more elegiac, more lyrical, and not so cruel as 'Ask the Dust' and, above all I believe it is the best example of how a writer can disappear behind his writing. The first person narrator is a 20-year-old young man, though Fante wrote the book when he was blind, and with no legs. But there's another thing I would like to add: '1933 was a Bad Year' as we know is actually only a part of what Fante wanted to write. Fante loved baseball and I found at Joyce's (i.e., Fante's wife) many more chapters for a development of the story. The boy was actually directed to California, to try to be hired by a baseball club, but later there would have been the total failure of this hope".