Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life - Softcover

An illustrated biography of the cult writer who transformed his alcohol-soaked life into such novels as "Post Office" and "Women", and whose life was portrayed in the film "Barfly". It follows his sometimes tragic exploits along the rocky road from obscurity to underground sensation.

A former postman and long-term alcoholic who did not become a full-time writer until middle age, Charles Bukowski was the author of autobiographical novels that captured the low life -- including Post Office, Factotum, and Women -- and made him a literary celebrity, with a major Hollywood film (Barfly) based on his life. Drawing on new interviews with virtually all of Bukowski's friends, family, and many lovers; unprecedented access to his private letters and unpublished writing; and commentary from Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, R. Crumb, and Harry Dean Stanton, Howard Sounes has uncovered the extraordinary true story of the Dirty Old Man of American literature. Illustrated with drawings by Bukowski and over sixty never-before-published photographs, Charles Bukowski is a must for Bukowski devotees and new readers alike. As the Los Angeles Times noted, "Bukowski is one of those writers people remember more for the legend than for the work . . . but, as Howard Sounes shows in this exhaustively researched biography, it wasn't the whole story".