Charles Bukowski
Page 36
‘A thrilling peephole into [Bukowski’s] life.’ Wax
‘Exhaustive and very moving … a remarkable portrait of an American true-blue original.’ Livewire
‘Exhaustively researched.’ Los Angeles Times
‘A soberly investigated picaresque life… a biography that listens to Bukowski’s all-night barroom anecdotes and then checks the facts the morning after.’ Kirkus Review
‘A must-read for anybody who is a fan of Bukowski’s writing, [the biography] successfully conjures the voice of this outrageous character, and offers clear-eyed insight into his extraordinary life.’ Toronto Globe and Mail
‘A dandy look at [Bukowski’s] gloriously misled life… Sounes provides a valuable gateway to greater appreciation of a still under-appreciated writer.’ Booklist
‘Proving himself to be an excellent author in his own right, Sounes manages to write without sticking his proverbial thumb all over the lens … the result is a fast-paced narrative and a great read.’ Minneapolis City Pages
‘Surely, the result of [Sounes’s] exhaustive work, as he modestly hopes, the “definitive account” of the life of this self-proclaimed “Dirty Old Man”.’ Denver Post
‘A lively portrait of American literature’s “Dirty Old Man” … Recommended.’ Library Journal
About the Author
HOWARD SOUNES, who was born in suburban south-east London in 1965, made his living as a newspaper journalist until the mid-1990s when he broke major stories in the case of the serial murderers Fred and Rosemary West for the Sunday Mirror. He went on to cover the West case for the Daily Mirror and wrote the bestselling book Fred & Rose (1995) about the story. Sounes next tackled this biography of Charles Bukowski, becoming so immersed in the project that he quit his job to devote himself to it. Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life was first published by Canongate in 1998, and is now established as the definitive biography of this American writer. Sounes went on to edit a complementary photographic book, Bukowski in Pictures (Canongate, 2000). More recently, he has written the bestselling biography Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan (2001); an investigative history of professional golf, The Wicked Game (2004); and Seventies (2006), a history of the arts in the 1970s. Howard Sounes’ books are published around the world, translated into many languages. He lives in the City of London, and is represented by the literary agency Curtis Brown.
ALSO BY HOWARD SOUNES
Seventies
Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan
Bukowski in Pictures
The Wicked Game
Fred & Rose
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 1998 by Rebel Inc,
an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street,
Edinburgh, EH1 1TE
Revised paperback edition first published in 2007
by Canongate Books
This digital edition first published in 2009
by Canongate Books
Copyright © Howards Sounes, 1998
Preface copyright © Howards Sounes, 2007
The moral right of the author has been asserted
RAYMOND CARVER: Lines from ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’,
from Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories
First published in Great Britain in 1985 by Collins Harvill
© 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976,
1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 by
Tess Gallagher. Reproduced by permission of The Harvill Press
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84767 632 0
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