Post Office: A Novel

Charles Bukowski

Oct 2009 · Harper Collins

About this ebook

Charles Bukowski’s classic roman à clef, Post Office, captures the despair, drudgery, and happy dissolution of his alter ego, Henry Chinaski, as he enters middle age.

Post Office is an account of Bukowski alter-ego Henry Chinaski. It covers the period of Chinaski’s life from the mid-1950s to his resignation from the United States Postal Service in 1969, interrupted only by a brief hiatus during which he supported himself by gambling at horse races.

“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.”—Joyce Carol Oates

“He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”—Leonard Cohen, songwriter

Ratings and reviews

Bukowski's alter-ego — Henry Chinaski — likes women, the racetrack, and drinking. Especially drinking. What he doesn't care much for is work. A gifted slacker, Chinaski trudges from one dead-end job to another, eventually settling for a life of drudgery as postal clerk. Vicious bosses, moronic co-workers, and living with a daily hangover are the most visible obstacles in Chinaski's life. William S. Burroughs perfected the junky novel; Bokowski is the master of the functioning alcoholic. Chinaski's existence will repulse many, and he clearly follows his own moral code, not caring a wit about society as a whole, but his complexity and quotidian adventures make for a good read, and I recommend the book.

If you hate your job, are sick of your life, and feeling hopeless, read this book. It will make you feel like a million bucks, guaranteed! If you have an alcohol problem, avoid this book. You will have just found a terminal drinking buddy.

bitterness of life is so simply worded, to the point of being really depressing, by the uncaring male protagonist, Henry Chinaski, who seems to be the inspiration for Hank Moody, the guy in Californication too. Best book to start getting to know Bukowski and his very attractive character.

About the author

Charles Bukowski is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother, and brought to the United States at the age of two. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for over fifty years. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.Abel Debritto, a former Fulbright scholar and current Marie Curie fellow, works in the digital humanities. He is the author of Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground, and the editor of the Bukowski collections On Writing, On Cats, and On Love.