Dan Fante: underground writer expressed madness of the US workplace

The countercultural hero and self-styled ‘gin pissing, raw meat, dual carburetor V-8 son-of-a-bitch from Los Angeles’ died on Monday

Dan Fante, who died on on Monday aged 71, was one of the American literary underground’s most significant writers. The author, poet and playwright may not have had the mainstream awards and accolades, yet his worldwide influence was apparent in younger generations of writers inspired by his unflinching depiction of his – and modern American – life.

Fante came to writing late. The son of writer John Fante, he grew up in LA before struggling with alcoholism for many years. During this time he accrued a colourful CV, from beginning his occupational career as a carnival barker at a boardwalk funfair alongside “midgets, perverts, obsessed gamblers – wild people” to earning $500 a day as “an alkie-cokehead telemarketer”. There remained something of the salesman in his work: he was passionate, persuasive and had the gift of the gab.

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