What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

December 15, 1999
If Bukowski's stuff appeals to you at all, the new posthumous collection of it (there will be more, Black Sparrow says) should be gratifying as all get-out. In subject, treatment, style, etc., there is nothing new in it, just more conversational free verses about Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's not-very-alter ego: his lousy childhood and lousier youth, the demanding but often slobby dames he gets involved with, his writing and public reading career, his drinking and his gambling at the horse track, and his aging and approaching death. The humor is as raffish and hilarious as ever, the angst is as bargain-basement existentialist as ever, and the sentimentality is as Robert W. Service^-like (hard-hided and mush-hearted) as ever. If you haven't encountered Bukowski before . . . well, this exchange from "the saviour: 1970" (Bukowski avoids capitals) is typical: "you can't ignore the madmen. it has been tried too / often," an earnest young (mad)man says to Henry, who says, "have another beer, / kid." Dig that, dig the book. ((Reviewed December 15, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)