FULL OF LIFE

A comprehensive and compassionate biography of novelist-screenwriter Fante (1909–83), whose once-forgotten fiction and

largely forgettable screenplays are enjoying a renaissance. With apostolic fervor, Cooper (English/Calif. State Univ.) presents convincing evidence that Fante's work should be ranked "among the finest achievements of twentieth century American writing." Beginning his tale with the 50-ish Fante in Rome working on a screenplay, Cooper soon dives back into the murky river of Fante's past and begins to clarify. The son of an immigrant stone worker, he was born in Colorado, attended Catholic schools (graduating from high school "without distinction"), tried college a few times (unsuccessfully), and eventually headed to California. While working at a variety of menial jobs, Fante, in one of those miracles of self-creation, decided to turn to literature—and in no time at all he was a friend and correspondent of H.L. Mencken, a contributor to the American Mercury, and a novelist published by Knopf. Cooper meticulously chronicles Fante's yo-yo career: his stunning successes (stories were published in prestigious literary magazines; novels like Ask the Dust and Full of Life earned warm reviews) and his miserable failures (he drank heavily, gambled ineffectually, neglected his family for golf, and wasted years writing mindless movies). Most affecting are Fante's final years of suffering: the loss of eyesight and legs to diabetes, the recurrent sojourns in madness—all at a time when his literary reputation was ascending. (During this period he dictated to his wife one final, well-received novel, Dreams from Bunker Hill.) Cooper has Fante's own eye for arresting prose—he describes Fante buying a house so infested with termites that his pregnant wife would one day "plunge through the rotten floorboards"—and his richly informative endnotes are compelling reading as well.

A spirited, scholarly portrait of a man who wrestled with merciless demons and emerged victorious. (17 b&w photos)