Customer Reviews

John Fante & H.L. Mencken: A Personal Correspondence, 1930-1952

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Having read Fante's excellent "Ask the Dust," my heart skipped a beat when I saw this collection of letters at my local library. Recognizing at once Mencken's relationship to Arturo Bandini's literary hero, the "Great editor J.C. Hackmuth" who appears in Fante's LA stories, I lost no time in absorbing this collection.

Indeed, Fante did little to disguise his relationship with Mencken for his fiction, something which becomes apparent upon reading this volume. His early letters to Mencken are rife with ambition and emotional tumult, reminscent of Bandini's lugubrious musings in "Ask the Dust." Many times he adopts a tone of confessional, spilling his guts to Mencken, his putative mentor, laying bare all his prejudices, desires, and disillusions. It becomes clear that Fante has very few close friends, and that his family dominate his thoughts and feed his instabilities.

Mencken's responses are invariably curt and balanced. As if to avoid becoming entrenched in Fante's delirium (the two hadn't met in person, nor would they ever), Mencken's responses are terse but temperate - his words are encouraging, but eschew flattery. The young writer is obviously desperate for compliments, but Mencken never offers more than simple praise. Likewise, he reserves his vituperations for the subjects of his columns.

What's really most compelling about this collection is that it allows us an highly elucidated view of Fante's maturation as a writer and as a man. From his books it is difficult to discern his opinions of the political and social climate of era. But through his correspondence with Mencken, his allegiances are revealed.

Furthermore, given that the two men were basically glorified pen-pals (as I mentioned, they never met), it often turns out that they haven't much to discuss but politics and then-current events. The 1930's come alive in Fante's descriptions of writers' conventions, Hollywood, radio personalities, and political events. In his letters, he paints a very interesting picture of New Deal-era Socialism, albeit a decidedly negative one. Both he and Mencken are essentially apolitical, skeptical of both Fascism and Socialism, a fact which allows many very sharp aphorisms to be traded between the two men.

All in all, a very satisfying book, although short (under 200 pages). A bildungsroman of sorts, it sheds a great deal of light on the development of one of American literature's most underexposed talents.