RAW ~ REBELLIOUS ~ VULGAR

Bukowski's take on the bildungsroman, an anti-coming-of-age story and his finest novel.

Lifelong misfit Henry Chinaski grows up downtrodden, stumbling through a world he has only ever known as hostile. Fights, failed romances and humiliations abound; Chinaski toughens up as he grows up, finding solace in books and in the bottle.

Savagely funny and profoundly human, Ham on Rye is essential reading for anyone who has ever been ready to quit - and chosen to laugh, drink or fight back instead.

"In an age of conformity, Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad" - * Observer *

"Sometimes funny and always sad, Ham on Rye is written in an admirably hard, bare, vivid style" - * Times Literary Supplement *

"Both powerful and, where appropriate, extremely funny" - * Sunday Telegraph *

"Reflective, humane, tremendously evocative and absorbingly readable" - * The Times *

"A Laureate of American low life" - * Time *

"This great novel is Bukowski's supremely honest account of a twisted childhood" - * author of Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life *

"Raunchy yet lyrical, occasionally hilarious while abysmally sad" - * San Francisco Chronicle *