Dreams from Bunker Hill: Fante’s City and Mine - Book Review
From Bunker Hill to Santa Monica: Reading Fante against my Los Angeles
By Armando Ortiz
John Fante’s Dreams from Bunker Hill tells the story of Arturo Bandini, a young writer scraping by in Bunker Hill, a neighborhood once bustling with life but now remembered mostly by name. As the story unfolds, Fante paints vivid portraits of Los Angeles, making the novel a gem for anyone interested in the city’s history and character.
The book fits within the broader, often overlooked history of the Western United States at the turn of the 20th century. Born in Colorado to Italian immigrants, Arturo grew up poor, Catholic, and keenly aware of class divisions. In Los Angeles, he briefly finds success as a writer, yet discovers that the city’s opportunities come with their own rigid hierarchies. Life moves faster, the money is better, yet the drawbacks weigh heavily.
As Arturo weaves through the labyrinth of Los Angeles, Fante describes places instantly familiar to Angelinos. Reading his passages brought back memories of my own. I thought of the Hollywood Hills– the mountains that frame the city– and of Santa Monica, where life always seemed different. Terminal Island stirred another memory: my parents driving to Long Beach so we could fish. For Arturo, it becomes a retreat for writing. His blunder of a beach trip echoes the city’s restless coastline that stretches for miles.
From the coast, Fante takes you to the city’s core. The Olympic Auditorium, where Arturo attends a wrestling match, was also where I saw my first concert--Megadeth. In the novel, Arturo is booed out of the building. Downtown Los Angeles, too, comes alive in his story, its boulevards crowded with people searching for a meal or a deal— much as they still are today.
Fante contrasts the wealth and free-flow lifestyle of Hollywood’s elite with the lives of Arturo’s former classmates back home. Arturo is consumed by a gnawing envy, shaped by his Colorado upbringing. Although talented and successful, he feels out of place everywhere. To others, he is always too ethnic, too poor and never quite enough. His struggle with identity and belonging is deeply relatable, reflecting the tension between society’s expectations and the choices we make to shape our lives.
In the end, Fante weaves a tale that is both a meditation and portrait, capturing not only one man’s search for belonging, but also the restless pulse of Los Angeles– a rhythm still beating today.
