"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."--Publisher's website.
Young Arturo Bandini comes to Los Angeles to be a writer. A disappointing love affair and his poverty prove bitter and disillusioning.