Title: Ah, If Only The Dead Could Talk
Product review: I knew John Fante. We worked together at screenwriting in Los Angeles. While I started out wanting to applaud Mr. Collins' efforts at capturing his subject, again and again in reading this book I came upon unsubstantiated assumptions that I know to be in part or wholly inaccurate. Collins is a decent enough writer but here he takes on alchemy and produces too much hot air. Comparatively, Steven Coopers biography of Fante was at least workmanlike and based on interviews with Fante's widow, Joyce, and Fante's family. Conversely, Mr. Collins' effort appears to be fundamentally realized by intellectual assertion and personal specualtion. Having know Fante I cannot recommend this work. At best too much of it is guesswork and at worst it is insulting to its subject. I have no wish to be unkind to Mr. Collins but I do recommend that he stick to writing about what he actually knows.
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