Charles Bukowski cover

Charles Bukowski

by Howard Sounes

Charles Bukowski - onetime bum, long-term alcoholic, and author of now-classic novels such as Post Office, Factotum, and Women - rose from obscurity to become world famous. His semiautobiographical books about low-life America made him a cult figure and culminated in the making of Barfly, a Hollywood film based on Bukowski's life. In this, the first major biography of Bukowski, Howard Sounes has drawn on years of exhaustive research - including new interviews with virtually all of Bukowski's friends, his family, and his many lovers, as well as unprecedented access to his private letters and unpublished writing - to reveal the extraordinary true story of the Dirty Old Man of American literature. Illustrated with over sixty never-before-published photographs, Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life also includes original drawings by Bukowski and unique contributions by friends, including Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, R. Crumb, and Harry Dean Stanton.

More by Howard Sounes

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?