Friday, August 28, 2009

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski

I read this book when I was 18. It was the first of Bukowski's novels that I read, and I became a bit obsessed with him after that. But this is the best one, the story of the author's dysfunctional, alienated, acne-riddled childhood and adolescence through the thin veil of the fictional Henry Chinaski (I'm pretty sure that the boy in the yellow square on the cover is a young Bukowski). With both rawness and humor, he examines his formative years, chronicling how he became the man that he was. I think I'd like to read this one again.

1 comment:

  1. i just finished reading Ham On Rye last week. i liked it, despite the fact that Henry Chinaski's boyhood and mine have almost no common ground.

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