From the Canongate archives - 26 November 2001
If it wasn't for an encounter with an LA psychic, Dan Fante would never have dug out a manuscript from the papers of his lately deceased father, John, and 1933 Was a Bad Year would never have been published. Dan describes how Madam Sombrero channelled the publishing wishes of the spirit of John Fante and led to the publication of '1933', this 'stunning short novel' (The New Yorker).
It was 1986. I was slamming moochs over the telephone from a boiler room in L.A. My commissions were anywhere from $300 to $500 a day. I was driving a new, leased, convertible sports car and living in an ocean-view pad in Venice. My hobbies were pornography and hookers, drinking myself stupid, and spending every other weekend in Las Vegas. But as a telemarketer I was unstoppable and I had the world by the balls.
My old Pops, John Fante, had checked out three years before. His legs had been hacked off from diabetes and he was blind after the onset of glaucoma. The praise of Hank Bukowski and my father's re-discovery by John Martin at Black Sparrow Press had come too late. It was only in his last days that Pop began to experience a growing interest in his work. He had been struggling for so long against his illness and blindness that the pleasure he received from having his stuff re-presented and critically acclaimed was a bit like what happens in Egypt after the archeological team opens a three thousand year old tomb - the sting of the new air hits the priceless gold-gilded parchment and artifacts and what was once miraculous and beautiful becomes instantly tainted by age. My father died unable to enjoy the praise he deserved.
I began drinking and snorting myself in and out of recovery programs. My love for my father and his work had kept one dream alive: I vowed that some day - whatever it took - I would find a way to let people know about John Fante's genius.
Finally I got myself off the sauce and one night a co-worker of mine at a computer products boiler room in Santa Monica invited me over for dinner and a blind date with a three-hundred pound waitress. Eventually, after dessert, the conversation turned to Tarot Cards, Ouiji Boards, and metaphysical L.A. hooey-falooey. My friend's lady, it seemed, was a practicing astrologer. She had been conferring with an old psychic woman on Sherman Way in Van Nuys for a couple of years and insisted that she had magical powers and that I contact her. A Latina broad I'll call Madam Sombrero. At the time I was still being visited by snakes and gargoyles in my sleep so I said okay figuring a little inside dope might not be a bad idea. My blind date never developed into anything more than a scary roll in the hay (but did teach me to never underestimate the gratitude of a fat waitress).
A few days later, once inside the living room of Madam Sombrero, my twenty-five bucks in cash on her coffee table, the old girl began burning candles and incense and shit, and did a scarf-waving number. Then she mumbled some Span-glish mumbo jumbo and began rocking back and forth. I sat there relaxing and awaiting the arrival of Elvis in a clown suit.
But then the old broad locked eyes with me and whispered, 'Your father is near you .. he wants you to do something for him.'
I was pretty sure that my Pop's psychic telegram had something to do with another twenty-five dollar donation to Madam Sombrero's favorite charity, but I nodded in agreement anyway.
'He wants you to go to his files,' she said. 'He is telling me to tell you that there is a stack of papers covered by a black folder. You are to send that folder and its contents to someone named John. Do you know who John is?'
'Sure,' I said. 'My father was a writer. His publisher is a man named John.'
Two months later John Martin of Black Sparrow Press sent me a note thanking me for mailing him 1933 Was a Bad Year. The book was first published in America a year later.
I never saw Elvis in a clown suit but I did stop making fun of psychics.
Dan Fante was born and raised in Los Angeles. At twenty, he quit school and hit the road, eventually ending up as a New York City resident for twelve years. Fante has worked at dozens of crummy jobs including: door to door salesman, taxi driver, window washer, telemarketer, private investigator, night hotel manager, chauffeur, mailroom clerk, deck hand, dishwasher, carnival barker, envelope stuffer, dating service counselor, furniture salesman, and parking attendant.
