First published 1999
Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's down-and-out alter ego, stumbles through life as a perpetual outsider. Drifting from dead-end job to dead-end job, he seeks solace in the bottom of a bottle and the company of a revolving cast of lovers. But as the city's underbelly closes in, Chinaski must confront the dark realities of his own existence. A searing portrait of the artist as a self-destructive man, "Reach for the Sun" lays bare the price of living on society's margins.
Genres: american-fiction, addiction, 20th-century, biographical-fiction
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: anti-hero, unreliable-narrator
Period: 20th Century
250 pages · Hardcover · Ecco
Content warnings: addiction, alcohol-abuse, depression, substance-abuse