Coming of age in Depression-era Los Angeles, Henry Chinaski must contend with an abusive father, a lack of athletic ability, and a terrible case of acne—then he's sent to a posh, snobbish private school. In Charles Bukowski's autobiographical novel from 1982—praised by London's Times as "reflective, humane, tremendously evocative and absorbingly readable"—Chinaski will nonetheless make his way in an uncaring world, consoling himself with the pleasures of alcohol, women, and the L.A. Public Library's collection of D.H. Lawrence.