The Big Hunger

While I do recommend this collection, I can't give The Big Hunger five stars only because I love Fante and have read all of his published work, and these stories are not his best work, which can be transcendent. I wouldn't want anyone to buy this collection imagining this is a good place to start with this author. Of course, if you also are a Fante fan, you'll want to read this and you won't be disappointed, as long as you accept it as a collection of miscellaneous pieces. But they are unmistakably, recognizably Fante, and I'm grateful for any scrap I can get. Moreover, there are some very, very good pieces here. The prologue to Ask the Dust, for example, is stunning, and several of the stories are on a par with those published elsewhere.

Until you've read "Jakie's Mother", a short story in the pages of The Big Hunger, you haven't experienced truth in our artform.The stories of The Big Hunger are many and varied and show a number of different writing styles. This is a great book and one worth keeping.

Thank you Mrs. Fante for saving this piece and countless others of John Fante's work. It is so great to read Bandini after not having anything "new" for years. I have read the book twice in the 45 days I've had it. Bandini lives on! Bukowski said it best, "You should all read John Fante. That was one tough son-of-a-bitch!"

"being a writer I only live in the past and in thefuture"....arturo bandini says from THE BIG HUNGER....john fanteis alive again in my back room...he's been dead for years I know...but he is in my house now standing up shouting at me....he made me laugh and snicker first...then we got more drunk and he started in on a few stories that made me cry...john fante my old pal of stories is back...and we aren't finished yet reading them all...about half way...but I wanted somebody to know that he is with me now...THE BIG HUNGER a collection of short stories collected by Stephen Cooper...from the goldmine...