86'd - by Dan Fante (Paperback)

About the Book

Struggling telemarker-writer and part-time drunk Bruno Dante gets hired as a limo driver by the West Coast branch of his former Manhatten employer, provided that he keeps sober. But when financial and creative success drives Bruno back to the bottle, he struggles to keep his personal demons from getting the best of him again.

From the Back Cover

In Los Angeles, struggling telemarketer-writer and part-time drunk Bruno Dante is jobless again. The publication of his book of short stories has been put off indefinitely. Searching the want ads for a gig, he finds a chauffeur job. When Bruno calls the number in the ad, he discovers the boss is his former Manhattan employer David Koffman, who is opening a West Coast branch of his thriving limo service. Koffman hires Bruno as resident manager of Dav-Ko Hollywood under one condition: he must remain sober. But instant business success triggers an abrupt booze-and-blackout-soaked downward spiral for Bruno, forcing him to confront his own madness as he struggles to keep his old familiar demons from getting the best of him yet again.

Review Quotes

Readers who don't hang up... won't be able to stop listening - New York Times
" I can describe Dan Fante's work in one word... sublime." - Soud-Ouest, France.
"...writing that is a violent lyrical blizzard...." - Uncut Magazine
Dan Fante is an American master. His new novel, 86'd, proves it. With the imminent republication by Harper Perennial of his earlier three novels, which appeared in Europe years ago, America - which should have been first to recognize what it had - will now have a second chance to get to know one of its great writers. - Mark SaFranko, author of Hating Olivia and Lounge Lizard
"A powerful read from a writer who's lived what he writes and writes what he lived, 86'd stands out as yet another example of Fante's unique voice and bottoms-up, scraped-off-the-sidewalk prose." - Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight
"Told in a free-flowing narrative style that features a number of memorable characters, Fante's novel is dark, bleak, gritty, and inventively vulgar. It's also honest, painful, and occasionally tender." - Booklist
"Fante's voice is strong, fun, smart and edgy and it makes 86'd a great read." - San Francisco Book Review
"With Fante, and his father before him, there are never any false feelings or pretentiousness in the work... you know he has been where he writes from, and judging by the sound of things, it has been one hell of a wild ride." - Sacramento Book Review
"If you like your prose vodka-soaked, soulful, and bleeding on the page, then Fante is your man." - Ben Meyers, 3AM Magazine
"Fante offers moments that brush the genius of Bukowski and Hubert Selby, Jr." - Elle Magazine
"Dan Fante is an authentic literary outlaw." - New York Times
"Fante is a brilliantly economical stylist . . . sad, bitter, yet somehow infused with hope." - The Face
"86'd is an monstrously great American novel--full of humor, heartbreak, and fire. Fante writes like Muhammad Ali fought--there is a grace and aggression to these words that seems almost impossible at first glance. Voices like Fante's--bleeding, screaming, hectoring voices full of soul and sadness--are so rare in fiction these days, that it's impossible for a book like 86'd not to burrow into your heart and stay there for the long haul." - Tony O'Neill, author of Down and Out on Murder Mile