Speaking of the importance of timing when picking up a book, I went through John Fante's Ask the Dust yesterday and it lay their flat on the page like last night's vomit on the kitchen floor. I felt almost nothing and thought even less. I read it because his name keeps showing up on message boards as somebody everybody loves, and then Robert Towne just directed a movie version of it that got panned. Bukowski is always calling the guy his seminal influence, and the damn protagonist doesn't even drink! Am I missing something, or is there nothing there?