1933 Was a Bad Year

Description

“Either the work of John Fante is unknown to you or unforgettable. He was not the kind of writer to leave room in between.” — New York Times

Boulder, Colorado. The Depression has hollowed out the town, and it’s hollowing out the Molise family right along with it. Nick Molise, once a bricklayer, now scrapes by on pool-hall winnings and pride. His wife prays for a miracle that doesn’t come. And his mother-in-law, Bettina, never wanted to leave Italy and never lets anyone forget it.

In the middle of it all is seventeen-year-old Dominic — a southpaw with a fastball he’s sure will get him out of Boulder for good. While his father wants him hauling brick and mortar, Dominic dreams of the big leagues, bright lights, and a life bigger than the one closing in around him.

Funny, aching, and unmistakably Fante, 1933 Was a Bad Year is a story of a boy caught between his father’s hard-earned realism and his own reckless hope — and of a family holding on to each other because there’s nothing else left to hold.

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: John Fante
Published: 06/01/2002
Publisher: Ecco Press
ISBN: 9780876856550
Pages: 140
Weight: 0.42lbs
Size: 0.43″ H x 8.85″ L x 5.90″ W

About the Author
Fante, John: –

John Fante began writing in 1929 and published his first short story in 1932. His first novel, Wait Until Spring, Bandini, was published in 1938 and was the first of his Arturo Bandini series of novels, which also include The Road to Los Angeles and Ask the Dust. A prolific screenwriter, he was stricken with diabetes in 1955. Complications from the disease brought about his blindness in 1978 and, within two years, the amputation of both legs. He continued to write by dictation to his wife, Joyce, and published Dreams from Bunker Hill, the final installment of the Arturo Bandini series, in 1982. He died on May 8, 1983, at the age of seventy-four.