Ham On Rye
Published on 7. July 2001
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-1-84195-163-8 (ISBN)
Description
Legendary barfly Charles Bukowski's fourth novel, first published in 1982, is probably the most autobiographical and moving of all his books, dealing in particular with his difficult relationship with his father and his early childhood in LA.
Ham on Rye follows the path of Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski through the high school years of acne and rejection and into the beginning of a long and successful career in alcoholism. The novel begins against the backdrop of an America devastated by the Depression and takes the Chinaski legend up to the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Arguably Bukowski's finest novel.
Ham on Rye follows the path of Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski through the high school years of acne and rejection and into the beginning of a long and successful career in alcoholism. The novel begins against the backdrop of an America devastated by the Depression and takes the Chinaski legend up to the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Arguably Bukowski's finest novel.
Reviews / Votes
Very funny, very sad, and despite its self-congratulatory tone, honest in most of the right places. In many ways, Bukowski may have been the perfect writer to describe post-war southern California - a land of wide, flat spaces with nothing worth seeing, so you might as well vanish into yourself. In an age of conformity, Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad. * * The Observer * * Sometimes funny and always sad, Ham on Rye is written in an admirably hard, bare, vivid style. It offers grim insights into the construction of masculinity and American life between the wars. Doyle's introduction is excellent. * * Times Literary Supplement * * Both powerful and, where appropriate, extremely funny. * * Sunday Telegraph * * The largely autobiographical Ham On Rye is also suprisingly reflective, humane, tremendously evocative and absorbingly readable. * * The Times * *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
276 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84195-163-8 (9781841951638)
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Persons
Charles Bukowski, who died in 1994, was the legendary Californian writer who became famous for his semi-autobiographical books about low-life America. Novels such as Factotum and Post Office made this one-time bum, and lifelong alcoholic, rich and famous, and culminated in the making of Barfly, a major Hollywood movie based on his life starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway.