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Ask The Dust, Black Sparrow Press Hardcover (1 Viewer)

HenryChinaski

Founding member
anybody interested?
not to sure what it's worth.
ex-library, couple marks, no acetate jacket though.
pub page says it's a fifth.
condition is pretty good though.
PM me if you want it.

askthedust.jpg


if nobody here is interested, maybe one of you fellows could advise me as to how much i can get for it before i put it up on ebay.
 
Nice. Libraries get rid of many important books. You can't count on them to keep jack. It's out with the old and in with the new. I love exlibrary books, but I'm on a budget so I'll pass on this one.
 
Well, it's hard to find. Library copy or not.

I've found it ranging from $73.00 up to $1,200.00

Hope that helps.

Good grief, I just checked and I have the Black Sparrow paperback of Ask the Dust that John Martin sent me back in 1985. It was published in 1984 but the copyright notice says "Copyright 1939, 1980 by John Fante." And the preface is by Bukowski. Also have Collected Stories by Paul Bowles, copyright 1985, from the same batch of stuff that Martin sent me. Both are in very good condition except for some yellowing.
 
Yeah, Ask the Dust is an old book. The story goes that Bukowski pulled it from a shelf in the Los Angeles public library downtown one day and reading it changed it life. He certainly found something he liked in Fante's style, as he pretty much adopted his own version of it in his prose.

It was Bukowski's prodding that got Martin to re-release Fante's work - yet another thing we owe Black Sparrow press for. For Fante to be forgotten would have been criminal.
 
Yeah, I was familiar with the story and I agree 100 percent that it would have been a HUGE loss for Fante's work to be forgotten. A powerful writer.
 
Yeah, Ask the Dust ... It was Bukowski's prodding that got Martin to re-release Fante's work - yet another thing we owe Black Sparrow press for. For Fante to be forgotten would have been criminal.

Yes. Reprinting Fante was the second best thing Martin ever did (publishing Buk being number one), and we all owe him for that. What's scary is that a writer as fine as Fante had fallen into oblivion during his life. How the hell did that happen? It took an independent thinker like Bukowski and a bold publisher like Martin to bring Fante back. Now he's considered a major American author, and rightly so.
 
Fante ended up with a pretty successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter for much of his writing days, so I imagine that his more literary efforts didn't get the attention they deserved since he probably didn't have a steady publisher who was out there promoting his work (until BSP, of course).

Here's another version, if anyone cares. Lowest price on abebooks is $6,000. So this MUST be a bargain @ $5,500.

http://cgi.ebay.com/John-Fante-ASK-...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem
 
Purple Stickpin said:
Here's another version, if anyone cares. Lowest price on abebooks is $6,000. So this MUST be a bargain @ $5,500.

http://cgi.ebay.com/John-Fante-ASK-...ZWD1VQQ_trksidZp1638.m118.l1247QQcmdZViewItem

Yes, but the one on abe is fine condition. Really beautiful. This one on ebay is stinky. Not worth anywhere close to the $5500 they are asking. If Cahill is asking $6000 for that abe copy, they would probably take $5500, if offered. The one on abe has to be worth what, half?

Bill
 
Hey Bill, Just so we're clear, I was being totally sarcastic with my ALL CAPS "MUST." The dust jacket is trashed. The book itself is not too shabby.

I'd offer him $1,500 if I had it to offer, but I certainly don't. That Abebooks copy certainly is sweet, but I have a hard time thinking about simple first's commanding that kind of $$$. I mean Buk's limited signed editions with Buk's art are close to worth it (if I had the $$$). I'd sooner drop $3,000 on a book of Buk poems with an original piece of artwork before I'd buy a Fante 1st with nothing but a water-stained dust jacket. Then again, I can't do that either...

Then again, I love most of Fante. Wait Until Spring, Bandini is my favorite.
 

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