"I drove north up the Harbor freeway toward Hollywood Park. I'd been playing the horses over 30 years. It started after my near fatal hemorrhage at the L.A. County Hospital. They told me that if I took another drink that I was dead.
`What'll I do?' I asked Jane.
`About What?'
`What'll I use as a substitute for drink?'
`Well, there are the horses.'
`Horses? What do you do?'
`Bet on them? Sounds stupid.'
We went and I won handsomely. I began to go on a daily basis. Then, slowly, I began to drink a little again. Then I drank more. And I didn't die. So then I had drinking and the horses. I was hooked all around" (176).

Bukowksi's prose, much like his persona is strong, dead-pan, and often touching and funny. This novel however, is weaker than much of his other works of fiction because the narrator, Henry Chianski, is constantly surrounded by his colleagues. Bukowski doesn't allow for any breathing room in this often redundant portraiture of the world of making film, a field Bukowski has nothing but contempt for. After 100 pages of endless negotiations and back-stabbings one wonders why Bukowski wasn't able to conjure any better scenarios than he was in `The Post-Office,' a far less interesting subject and setting. This novel is not without its moments and the prose is never embarrassing, but it removes the grit and loneliness of his earlier work, necessarily at that, as he composes it onto the screen. A minor effort from an otherwise effective and provocative author.

This is Bukowskis humorous account of the making of the movie Barfly. Its funny to see the subtle name changes of people like Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke, Faye Dunaway, Tom Jones, Madonna (he referred to her as Ramona) and Bukowskis humorous and not always very complimentry recollections and opinions of them.

Hollywood isn't as good as Ham on Rye, Post Office or Women but its still very good and worth reading.

Man could Buk write. But could he write. I suppose we are all just posers and pretenders and wanna-bes in his shadow, but Buk is essential reading for anyone interested in studying the craft and art and technique of writing, of, as Buk would say 'laying down the word,' and when it came to it, Buk could do it better than anyone. I've tried to write a passage with as much simplicity and elegance and attitude as he had and failed completely. His sparse prose and mastery of the obvious and attitude all contribute to a unique style in American letters that exemplify the beauty of our language when wielded by a master. Post Office, Hollywood, Factotum and Ham On Rye are MUST reads for any serious student of modern writing. And damned entertaining stories to boot.

Bukowski's humor is razor sharp in this book ostensibly on the making of "Barfly." Bukowski was enjoying some measure of success and even respect by this point, and was approached by Schroeder to write the screenplay for a movie about himself. Bukowski was of course flattered and took up the challenge. His books and poetry have always been about himself in one form or another, but here was his big chance to imagine himself on screen.

Bukowski takes you step by step through the making of the movie, with a sardonic eye for the details. Schroeder and his pal tried to get in touch with the lower east side of LA, which Bukowski enjoys poking fun at. He wasn't too keen about having Mickey Roarke cast as himself, he had Sean Penn in mind, but was smitten with the idea of Faye Dunaway as his love interest.

The book doesn't plunge to the lower depths as do his short stories and poetry. Bukowski keeps himself semi-detached from the subject of his early life. The book, like the movie, looks back at these formative years in a wry way that has a number of amusing twists and turns. He ends appropriately enough with the screening of the movie, with much of the gang invited to attend, making a party of it down in front of the screen as they assessed the film. Not bad, Bukowski concluded.

Drinking and creativity do not necessarily go together. For every O'Neill, Faulkner, Hemingway, and London, there are hundreds of others who live lonely, desparate and short existences, slowly drinking themselves to death in complete anonymity. Luckily, the world was blessed to have had Charles Bukowski whose most creative moments emerged when he sat before a typewriter with a wine bottle in one hand. Bukowski wrote gritty and no holds barred novels and poetry about the things he loved best--drinking, horse racing and women. He also wrote the screenplay for "Barfly," a film about his young manhood, spent hanging around seedy bars, getting into drunken brawls with the bartender, and writing some of the best poems this side of the grave.

Bukowski tells the story of his screenwriting experience through his alter ego Henry Chinaski, a survivor when everyone else in his crowd had already died. It's all there--dealing with easily bruised egos, the Hollywood eccentrics, the on again, off again production problems in making the film, and the continuous inconsistency of cash flow. What lends _Hollywood_ its wonderful resonance is its realness--the boldness and the pluck of its coarse leading player, Charles Bukowski/Hank Chinaski. And of course, his inspiration, the bottle of wine which was, even on the set, never too far off.