Ham on Rye: A Novel

“Wordsworth, Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and the
Beats in their respective generations moved poetry toward a more natural
language. Bukowski moved it a little farther.” –Los Angeles Times Book Review

In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski
details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice
of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany
through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of
alcohol, woman, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D.H. Lawrence,
Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an
outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.

In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, woman, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D.H. Lawrence, Ham on Rye offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.

“The poet laureate of sour alleys and dark bars, of racetracks and long shots.” - Washington Post

“There is real poignancy in the people encountered in Bukowski’s work.” - New York Times Book Review

“A prolific poet . . . a popular, accessible, and yes, great artist.” - Washington Post Book World

“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.” - Joyce Carol Oates

“He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.” - Leonard Cohen

“Bukowski is the laureate of the Los Angeles underground, an eccentric who sees the world with a clarity of vision possessed only by artists and madmen.” - Los Angeles Times