Charles Bukowski and the Passing of Blue-Collar Lit

Monday marked the 32^nd anniversary of the passing of Charles Bukowski from leukemia at age 73. Considering the life he lived, it is remarkable he lived as long as he did. Bukowski, whose rough but strangely captivating visage was best described by Paul Ciotti as “a sandblasted face, warts on his eyelids and a dominating nose that looks as if it was assembled in a junkyard,” was an author who defined outsider American literature in the 1960s and 1970s. Unlike his wholesome contemporaries, Ray Bradbury and E. B. White, Bukowski was a notorious womanizer with an aura of stale aftershave, Chesterfield cigarettes, and cheap wine.