The Thousands

Because of his debauched, honest and down-right dirty tales of life on the skids, Charles Bukowski has been adopted (and loved) by each generation since the 1960s. It becomes clear through Howard Sounes‘ biography that Bukowski would have ripped to shreds many of his most adoring fans, from the hippies of old, to the hipsters of new.

Sounes doesn’t attempt to whitewash or romanticise Bukowski’s surprisingly long life. After reading this book I doubt I ever would’ve put myself in the presence of the self-proclaimed ‘dirty old man’, mainly out of fear of a verbal gutting, or even worse, the threat of seduction.

Sounes’ thorough research turns up many of the same stories that can be found in Bukowski’s longer works; evidently Bukowski dished the literary dirt on his lovers behind the thin guise of protagonist Henry Chinaski, revealing intimate and embarrassing moments (such as an incident where a jilted girlfriend’s false teeth popped out in a fit of drug-induced vomiting).

Too much? Never! It seems that none of the details of Bukowski’s own life were taboo in his written work. God help the women who slept with him or the men who irked him. That said, the snippets of poetry that Sounes includes hint at a more sensitive Bukowski, one that’s insightful, fragile and heartbreaking.