The Road to Los Angeles

Rating:
Summary: Good For a First Novel
Review: This book shows Fante still bumping around somewhat, trying to get in the groove of working outside of the short story format that he had already mastered. The results are mixed, and I definitely don't agree with those who say that this is his masterpiece. People always say that about a famous writer's first "unpublishable" novel, generally overlooking the possibility that it might not be due to its groundbreaking style but because it contains major flaws. For anyone to call this work groundbreaking shows that they haven't read very many novelists from the 1930s. It's pretty tame stuff. Writers like Nathanael West and Horace McCoy, just to name two, were pushing the envelope further than Fante. And in England, there was Lewis and APES OF GOD. I'm not knocking him, ASK THE DUST is one of my favorite novels, but he should be put in the proper perspective and not praised uncritically. ROAD TO LOS ANGELES rambles and feels like a short story that went on a bit too long. It definitely didn't hold my attention like BANDINI , DUST, or BROTHERHOOD OF THE GRAPE, and overall, structurally speaking, it shares more with the flawed DREAMS FROM BUNKER HILL than these other works. I found myself pushing through to the end just because it was Fante's first novel. If it were anyone else, I probably would have given up on it. Sure, there are great moments but it has major cohesion issues.