Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life [Paperback]

Howard Sounes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2000

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with virtually all of Bukowski's friends, family, and many lovers; unprecedented access to his private letters and unpublished writing; and commentary from Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, R. Crumb, and Harry Dean Stanton, Howard Sounes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 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."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Exhilarating, hilarious and often emotionally draining, this superb biography of the maverick, hard-bitten bard of the Los Angeles demimonde uncorks a potent brew of wild, antiheroic anecdotes. Sounes (Fred & Rose) often corrects Bukowskis version of events, without deflating the writer or losing sympathy for his often depressing life, from his sad, twisted childhood (complete with regular beatings) in Los Angeles to his discovery of both alcohol and literature as a teen. Dropping out of L.A. City College in 1940, Bukowski was classified 4-F, went on the road and worked odd jobs, all the while mailing poems and stories to little magazines. At age 27, Bukowski (1920-1994) had his first relationship with a woman, the alcoholic and routinely unfaithful Jane Cooney Baker, who became a prototype for his female characters. He wrote his first novel, Post Office (1971), in only three weeks, and his autobiographical screenplay for Barbet Schroeders film Barfly (1987) brought him, improbably, into the Hollywood circle. Sounes spent two years interviewing more than 100 people, including women in Bukowskis tangled love life, who provide intimate details. Peering nonjudgmentally down every avenue of grief and despair, Sounes improves on previous books on Bukowski by Neeli Cherkovski, Steve Richmond and Russell Harrison. After reading Souness account, it is difficult to agree with his subjects self-assessment that, despite a prolific output of over a thousand poems, six novels and several collections of stories, I wont be leaving much. Something to read, maybe. A wild onion in the gutted road. Paris in the dark. More than 70 illustrations, including R. Crumb art and several previously unpublished photos of key people in the poets life.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Bukowski has always had a cult following, but he is probably best known from Mickey Rourke's portrayal of him in the Hollywood movie Barfly. Sounes, a British journalist, relies on interviews and correspondence with friends and lovers as well as material from Bukowski's highly autobiographical works to create a lively portrait of American literature's "Dirty Old Man." Sounes documents Bukowski's joyless childhood (the result of an abusive father and a severe case of acne), his struggle to support himself at low-paying jobs (including a stultifying stretch at the Post Office), his lifelong battle with alcoholism, and his belated rise to celebrity. Much of the book reads like a history of sexual conquests as Bukowski makes a startling transformation from Quasimoto to Casanova along the road to fame and prosperity. Fans who enjoyed Neeli Cherkovski's Hank (LJ 1/91) will welcome this fresh look at Bukowski's life. Recommended for larger literature collections.AWilliam Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (May 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802136974
• ISBN-13: 978-0802136978
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #497,365 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My books are the stories of interesting lives - including biographies of Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and the writer Charles Bukowski.

More information at www.howardsounes.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good bio of a great writer, May 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life (Hardcover)

Here's a story kiddies, please bear with me:

Years ago I was a struggling, naive graduate student in English at a major southern university. Like a fool, I decided to write a master's thesis on Charles Bukowski. The department chair stuck me with a professor who was supposedly the resident expert on contemporary American literature. From our first conversation it was clear that the man not only had no respect for Buk, but hated his work and hated the very notion that anyone would want to do graduate level work on him. He dismissed the idea with a sniff, saying, "He's marginal and unworthy. No one has written a book on him." I am sad to report that I let the bastard get the better of me. The thesis went unwritten.

Well, that was a decade ago and since then there have been several very fine books written about Bukowski. Three excellent volumes come readily to mind: Neeli Cherkovski's seminal biography, "Bukowski: A Life"; Gay Brewer's Twayne volume, "Charles Bukowski"; and Russell Harrison's "Against the American Grain." All are top notch in their own way.

Now we have Howard Sounes' worthy addition to this list, "Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life." This new biography works well as a compliment to Cherkovski's more intimate work (Neeli and Hank were good friends and the closeness of their relationship informs every page of the text). Sounes' book is more flamboyant, to be sure, and paints Bukowski in darker colors than does Cherkovski's. Both portraits are quite valuable and, even more important, both are very good reads.

I'm still waiting, though, for the definitive Bukowski biography to emerge, a book that combines a true scholar's rigor with a novelist's eye for detail. Maybe some new English professor or graduate student coming up will grab for the brass ring. I can't help but think that our universities will finally forget their snobbery and small brained prejudices and hop on the Bukowski bandwagon.

What I would love to see published is a book that encompasses the pictures painted by Sounes, Cherkovski, Brewer and Harrison, with added chunks of personal grace and style thrown in by this to-be-named biographer. It's bound to happen some day because Bukowski's legacy is simply too daunting, too great to be ignored.

In the meantime, I recommend this book and all of the others I named above. There are other fine volumes on Buk out there, too. Go find them all and read them right away. You'll learn lots of cool stuff and be the life of your next cocktail party!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most definitive account of Bukowski's life, September 26, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Barefoot Bay Marina, Lake Bob Sandlin, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life (Hardcover)

Thi extensively researched book reads like a novel of Bukowski's life . I was swept up in the gripping narrative. I knew Bukowski and we were close friends for 20 years, so it was like reading an account of my own life. There were fotos I'd never seen before, of Hank and his family, of his girlfriends in later years, and a lot of information about Bukowski that Sounes discovered during his research. I was very impressed with the book and recommend it to anyone intersted in Bukowski's extraordinary life. Sounes did not spare him, but he was fair and objective. I came away with the feeling that I had gone back in time and relived those days of poetry and booze and women, the race track, the hard years at the post office. It's all there, brilliantly recreated by Howard Sounes.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars New bio good, but not great., June 7, 1999

By 

Mark Begley "Letterpressed.com" (Fresno, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life (Hardcover)

Howard Sounes' new Bukowski biography is much better than Cherkovski's BUKOWSKI: A LIFE, or Steve Richmond's self-serving SPINNING OFF BUKOWSKI; but it's still not great. He does dispel some of the Bukowski mythology (which Bukowski himself was the main promoter of) that has grown over the years. Unfortunately, he dwells too much on Bukowski's sex life, which can be read about in two fat Bukowski books (in every Bukowski book really) WOMEN and LOVE IS A DOG FROM HELL. This would be a good introduction for the uninitiated, but for Buk fanatics it's nothing new. Try Gay Brewer's wonderful CHARLES BUKOWSKI, for a more in depth (though somewhat academic) look at what Bukowski is important for: HIS WRITING! And for Bukowski's publishing history the forthcoming DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE PRIMARY WORKS OF CHARLES BUKOWSKI by Aaron Krumhansl, will be indispensible.