Short Dog

Dan Fante lived in Los Angeles, a city that provided the setting for much of his work. His novels (published by Ecco) include Chump Change, Mooch, 86’d and Spitting Off Tall Buildings. He is also the author of the poetry collections A Gin-Pissing-Raw-Meat-Dual-Carburetor-V8-Son-Of-A-Bitch From Los Angeles and Kissed by a Fat Waitress, as well as the memoir, Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing, Drinking and Surviving.Willy Vlautin is the author of several novels including The Motel Life and the forthcoming, The Night Always Comes. He lives outside Portland, Oregon.

“With the rerelease of Short Dog, we find Fante at his most grizzled and unrepentant…like Jim Thompson whispering lines for Charles Bukowski to carnival bark.”—Los Angeles Review of Books“This cab driver’s anecdotal tour of L.A.’s underbelly contains scenes of compulsive readability that could turn mainstream writers green, and not from a hangover.”—Booklist “Dan Fante is an authentic literary outlaw....Short Dog delivers eight blunt, unsparing episodes in Bruno’s [Fante’s alter ego] brief career as a Los Angeles taxi driver. Dan Fante’s world is unremittingly ugly, but like Ishmael he has lived to tell the tale.”—New York Times“Shaggy, gritty...echoes of Burroughs and Kerouac...Fante’s raunchy, dynamic voice occasionally soars.”—Publishers Weekly“Hardnosed tales . . . Fante’s writing often gets compared to his forebear Charles Bukowski’s . . . both men wrote about hard drinking in the rogue’s gallery.”—Rain Taxi