Mooch : a novel

In Mooch, aspiring writer and part-time drunk Bruno Dante is finally sober, and has become the best boiler-room salesman in L.A. But Dan Fante's anti-hero can't keep a good thing going. Leaping headfirst into an impossibly destructive love-hate relationship with the addictive ex-stripper Jimmi Valiente, Bruno finds it's not long at all before his world begins to spiral out of control...again.With prose that seeps with brutal aggression and biting wit, Fante portrays the unavoidable self-destruction of a man whose inner demons won't allow him to live within the limitations of society. Bruno Dante is the best boiler-room salesman in Los Angeles. There's only one problem: he can't keep a good thing going. When he becomes involved with a beautiful but dangerous fellow Orbit Computer Supplies employee—sexy ex-stripper, gangbanger, and crackhead Jimmi Valiente—Bruno's ready to chuck his job and his most recent twelve–step program. Leaping headfirst into an impossibly destructive love-hate relationship with the addictive Jimmi, Bruno finds it's not long at all before his world begins to spiral out of control . . . again. Ten months after the death of his father, Dante has cleaned himself up, straightened out, and is back on the wagon. He is also back on the mooch, selling computer supplies. But when Orbit Computer Supplies hires the beautiful Jimmi Valiente, Dante's world once again prepares to go into free fall I HADN'T WRITTEN a word or a story or anything in months.