This is the most existential of his novels. It is not about rising up, but about staying afloat
The novel is a viciously funny and soul-crushing account of Chinaski’s decade-long career as a mail carrier and clerk. It contains every Bukowski trademark: the hatred of authority, the search for cheap wine, the desperate affairs, and the gallows humor of a man who realizes the American Dream is a lie. “The post office is a brutal institution,” he writes. It remains the perfect starting point. The Wander Years. Chronologically, Factotum precedes Post Office . It follows Chinaski as a young man drifting across 1940s America, taking menial jobs (a factotum is a handyman of all work) only long enough to earn money for a bottle and a room. He works in a bicycle factory, a dog biscuit plant, and a slaughterhouse—fired from almost all of them.
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) remains one of the most raw, controversial, and imitated voices in 20th-century American literature. He was a cult figure who became a mainstream success, a poet who wrote like a drunk on a bender, and a novelist who turned the ugly, mundane corners of Los Angeles into epic poetry.