The Captain is Out to Lunch

May 15, 1998
Something new from Bukowski is always a treat. This posthumous collaboration with comix artist R. Crumb is sublime. Crumb perfectly captures Bukowski's world, which did change over the years. The wall-to-wall drinking and fighting of younger days gave way to the horse track, writing, and mortality. The writing became less compact, but then these writings are late-night journal entries. Bukowski at 71 was using a word processor, keeping his manual typewriter next to the computer (it leered at him when its digital descendant was on the blink). If fans can abide such bourgeois developments as that and the old Bukowski's swimming pool, they will be thoroughly gratified by this book that gives us the same cranky, sardonic, insightful master of gritty expression whose roaring public appearances of the '60s triggered the rebirth of poetry as performance. And oh, yes, this satisfying glimpse of the writer near the end of his career is also a must for Crumb enthusiasts. ((Reviewed May 15, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)