Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Bukowski's writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles, and is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. A prolific author, Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories, and six novels, eventually having over 60 books in print. In 1986 Time called Buko...
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness
Synopsis
This early collection gathers dozens of Charles Bukowski's short stories from the underground press, introducing the dive bars, flophouses, racetracks, and bedrooms that would define his fiction. Many are narrated by his alter ego, Henry Chinaski, or figures much like him: drunks, gamblers, writers, and drifters chronicling the squalor and stray grace of life at the bottom.
Bukowski writes with deliberate crudeness and flashes of tenderness, mixing autobiography, fantasy, and provocation. Some pieces are bleakly funny, others deliberately shocking, and a few reach genuinely disturbing territory. Together they map an America of the marginal and the desperate, rendered without apology or moral comfort.
A cornerstone of Bukowski's reputation, later editions split this volume into separate collections. In its original form it remains one of the fullest, rawest samplers of his short fiction—unfiltered, transgressive, and unmistakably his own.
Vibe
Genres
Characters
Henry ChinaskiProtagonist
Bukowski's recurring alter ego, narrating several of the collection's stories.
Places
Edition
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary MadnessPaperback, 1974
478 pages
City Lights BooksLanguage: EnglishISBN: 97808728606123. print.5 editions available
