Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust is a virtuoso performance by an influential master of the twentieth-century American novel. It is the story of Arturo Bandini, a young writer in 1930s Los Angeles who falls hard for the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Struggling to survive, he perseveres until, at last, his first novel is published. But the bright light of success is extinguished when Camilla has a nervous breakdown and disappears . . . and Bandini forever rejects the writer's life he fought so hard to attain.

• Wait Until Spring, Bandini
• Journey to the End of the Night
• The Road to Los Angeles
• Dreams from Bunker Hill
• Ham on Rye: A Novel
• post office: A Novel
• Factotum
• Corelli's Mandolin: A Novel
• What Makes Sammy Run?
• Women: A Novel