First published 2007
In a grimy L.A. dive, Henry Chinaski nurses a whiskey, watching lowlifes drift through. Chinaski is one of them - a washed-up writer struggling to get by. When he loses his job, home, and girl, he sinks into the city's gritty underbelly, drowning his sorrows in a haze of cheap booze and women. But Chinaski's biting wit and dark humor keep him afloat, even as he plunges to the depths of human degradation. Trapped in the Pleasures of the Damned, can this broken man find a way to reclaim his life?
Genres: american-fiction, addiction, 20th-century, crime, contemporary, dark
Vibes: dark, emotional, gritty
Tropes: anti-hero, down-on-his-luck
Setting: Los Angeles
Period: 20th Century
576 pages · Kindle Edition · HarperCollins Publishers
Content warnings: alcohol-abuse, depression, substance-abuse