Product Description

Henry Chinaski, an outcast, a loner and a hopeless drunk, drifts around America from one dead-end job to another, from one woman to another and from one bottle to the next. Uncompromising, gritty, hilarious and confessional in turn, his downward spiral is peppered with black humour. "Factotum" follows Charles Bukowski's bestselling "Post Office", his highly autobiographical first novel. Bukowski's Beat Generation writing reflects his slum upbringing, his succession of menial jobs and his experience of low life urban America. He died in 1994 and is widely acknowledged as one of the most distinctive writers of the last fifty years. Neeli Cherkovski was a close friend of Bukowski and is the author of "Hank: The Life of Charles Bukowski" (Random House, 1991).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10526 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Uncut
'A side-splitting chronicle ... dirty realism from the godfather of lowlife literature'

Bizarre
'Its genius is simple and it shines a wee candle on the life of an aspiring poet and home-relief applicant'

From the Back Cover
Not since George Orwell has the condition of being down-and-out been so well recorded' New York Times
Henry Chinaski, an outcast, a loner and a drunk, drifts around America from one dead-end job to another, from one woman to another and from one bottle to the next. Uncompromising, gritty, hilarious and confessional in turn, his downward spiral is peppered with black humour.
Factotum follows Charles Bukowski’s bestselling Post Office, his highly autobiographical first novel. Bukowski’s Beat Generation writing reflects his tough upbringing, his succession of menial jobs and his experience of low life urban America. He died in 1994 and is widely acknowledged as one of the most distinctive writers of the last fifty years.
'Funny and sharp, observant, clever with details and honest' Times Literary Supplement

Customer Reviews

Grimly brilliant, brilliantly grim
This book is not uplifting. Bukowski pulls no punches in his description of a writer fighting for success, while fighting a losing battle against his own demons and apathy. Simply can't believe someone turned this into a film. Bukowski simply has to be read as a great American writer, shining a light on a part of America in the twentieth century that is not often looked at. His style is economical and fast paced, and you swiftly get drawn into a tale of characters doing really very little except messing up their lives. Don't read it when your down and alone.

Pick Up A Copy!
Just picked up Factotum by Bukowski, after reading The Losers Club by Richard Perez. Strange 'cause both books are somehow related. The connection? The drudgery of menial work! The dehumanizing affects of a life-wasting occupation is an underlying theme, mixed with accounts of failed relationships and an overall freefloating narrative structure. In Factotum, Buk recounts his mostly autobiographical adventures as a floating unemployed (and often unemployable) menial worker. He travels from state to state, writing and collecting rejection letters from magazines, and tries to deal with the unending humiliation of low-paying jobs and rat-trap apartments and fragile relationships. Often, he ends up hitting the bottle and, in bars, ends up meeting up with fellow drunks and losers and desperate ladies struggling to scrape by. There's humor here but also a lot of truth, some it stark and grim. One line that blew me away, gave me chills was: "Ain't no women on skid row." This was over Chinaski's anxiety regarding a female drinking companion. The style of the book is simple and easy and direct, and I found myself sucked into it right away. A child could read this book. I also read the whole book in one day, which for me is a first. Definitely pick up a copy of this novel. It's not as famous as his other novels, but as a memorable account/study of a "working stiff," worth owning, especially if you like Buk and his "down and out" view of life and appreciate his humor.

chinaski as bandini
Factotum was the second of Buk's novels, falling between Post Office and Women. Post Office was all about Chinaski (the alter ego) finding writing out of the menial life of a post office worker. Factotum filled in Chinaski's 20s, the period when he really ran away and learned to rage, to fight and to drink. Arguably i would say that this is the classic depiction of Bukowski as the 'down-and-out' that everyone associates him as. Peculiarly (or perhaps not) there is a lot of resonance here with Fante's 'Road to Los Angeles' and the Arturo Bandini we see in that book. I think this is as close as Bukowski ever came to imitating the work of his hero and yet it must have been unkowingly achieved, because Factotum ended up being published first. Still, to me the two are sister novels.

Although i wouldn't rate Factotum as the finest piece of Bukowski (i think the short stories and poetry are where his genius lie) i think it is crucial to understanding and loving his outlook on the world; it sucks, so lets drink and fight our way through it.