Ham on Rye (The Canons)

by RoddyDoyle (Introduction), Charles Bukowski (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2011

  $5.29

  Ham on Rye follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter-ego, through his troubled high school years to the beginning of a long and destructive struggle with alcoholism. Henry's early experiences are a mix of wry misadventure and emotional turmoil. He struggles with women, sports, his own writing, and, most heartbreakingly, his father - a monster of a man who looms large over almost every page of this wise and tough account of adolescence.

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $5.75

  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.