"Ham on Rye" by Charles Bukowski

I always thought Mark Twain's novels about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were the seminal American coming-of-age works, but that was only until I read this work about Bukowski's childhood and youth. The title might be a word play on "Catcher in the Rye", another seminal coming-of-age American novel, which was actually banned for a while because it had some sex and suicide in it. If that's the criteria, then Bukowski's novel should have been banned for all times, since it has all that and way, way more.


First the random violence that his father bestows upon him is absolutely disturbing by today's standards. I read online reviews saying "that was normal in the 1930s and everybody did it", but hell, it is still disturbing, especially when teachers at school do it, like the principal who almost broke little Charles' hand to prove he is tougher than the little kid - what a psychopath!


The kids at school beating on each other, especially on the weaker ones, is also described very disturbingly, especially incidents like and older kid breaking smaller kid's teeth by shoving his mouth into a water fountain, which went unpunished. Growing up in such environment Bukowski realized that there is only one way to survive - became more asshole than all the assholes around him. And he succeeded!


 By the time he is in high school, he is one of the toughest kids around and nobody dares messing with him. That also leaves him with no friends as well, which is why he turns to alcohol about age 15 and keeps at it until the end of his life, just before his 74th birthday.


The book is written in a very flowing and conversational manner, as Bukowski always said that one should write as one speaks, and he hated the flowery, embellished language of the 19th century writers (which I actualy like, quite a bit). Things like a 13-year-old girl being raped by her father ("her father took her virginity"), suicide and egregious domestic violance are mentioned in passing, as if they are the most normal things.


Bukowski describes how he hit his own father eventually, although their relationship ended later, when his father threw out his short stories and typewriter, which Bukowski couldn't forgive (he had to draw a line somewhere).


Bukowski's advice for writers is, when a story or a chapter is finished, delete the first and last paragraphs, so this book ends pretty much in mid-page, mid-action, just like it starts.