Ham on Rye

Charles Bukowski draws on his own troubled youth to create a raw, darkly comic portrait of an outsider coming of age during the Great Depression.

Through his alter ego, Henry Chinaski, Bukowski traces a childhood marked by loneliness and cruelty, from his early years in Germany to the acne-ridden indignities of high school and the first intoxicating discoveries of alcohol, sex, and literature.

As Chinaski struggles to find his place in a world that seems determined to reject him, the Los Angeles Public Library becomes an unexpected refuge, opening the door to the writing of D. H. Lawrence and the possibility of another kind of life.

Brutal, uncompromising, and savagely funny, Ham on Rye is a memorable coming-of-age story about alienation, rebellion, and the making of one of American literature’s most distinctive voices.