Title: Hollywood
Author: Charles Bukowski
Type: Fiction/Non-Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 268
Rating: 5*/5
Charles Bukowski – Holiday
I’ve been kind of saving this one because it was the only Bukowski novel that I hadn’t read. But then I saw Paperback Junky on YouTube talking about Bukowski and it made me want to pick it up and tick it off.
It was worth the wait. If you’ve read Bukowski before and you’re familiar with his history then you’ll even be able to tie this book back to the events that it covers. Bukowski wrote the autobiographical screenplay for a movie called Barfly starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway, and this novel basically covers the period of his life around the writing of the screenplay, the shooting of the movie and its eventual release.
Of course, we’re also told all of this through the persona of Hank Chinaski, and Bukowski has always blurred the lines between fact and fiction in his work. Nevertheless, if you’re interested in his unique style of writing or if you want an honest book about Hollywood life then you’re going to enjoy this one, and if you haven’t watched the film then it’ll increase your enjoyment if you watch it after reading the book.
All in all, I enjoyed this book just as much as I expected to, and that’s saying something because I went into it with high expectations. I probably wouldn’t recommend it as your first Bukowski novel because it’d work best if you read them in chronological order, but I read them out of order and still loved it. It was excellent.
Charles Bukowski
