The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Bukowski: A Life by Neeli Cherkovski and The Buk Book: Musings on Charles Bukowski by Jim Christy
Gerald Locklin

Neeli Cherkovski. Bukowski: A Life. Steerforth, 1997. 352 pp. Paper: $18.00; Jim Christy. The Buk Book: Musings on Charles Bukowski. Photos by Claude Powell. ECW Press, 1997. 89 pp. Paper: $12.95.

Writers such as Charles Bukowski or Thomas Wolfe, whose fictions constitute virtual autobiographies, are perhaps the most difficult for biographers to deal with and yet are also the most in need of external investigation. Neeli Cherkovski’s book is not the definitive biography of Bukowski, but it is a useful start and written in the clear, direct style of the master. Its strength resides in the soother’s close access to the subject during their early friendship, his obvious affection for Bukowski’s democratizing work, and the material from interviews that Bukowski eventually consented to. One wishes, on the other hand, that there had been more corroboration, especially of Bukowski’s youth, from research. Also, this volume is, as the copyright page admits, only “a slightly different version” of Cherkovski’s Hank, The Life of Charles Bukowski, published by Random House in 1991. This book purports to include the “wilder stories” which Bukowski regretted were previously omitted, but they are hard to find, as the inadequate index and notes have not been significantly improved. Still, the limited bibliography has been updated. I have made use of Hank in my own work and will no doubt be consulting this version. Other accounts of Bukowski’s life are reportedly forthcoming. One regrets the omission of the photos by Michael Montfort that appeared in Hank.
The Buk Book, although lifting much of this information from other sources, uncited, does provide some of those wilder, hairier anecdotes of the Rabelaisian Buk, but the “musings” seem largely a justification for the publishing of the outlandishly bawdy photos. A young Claude Powell was apparently a carousing buddy of Bukowski’s from 1969 into the ‘70s. Jim Christy corresponded with Bukowski in 1984 and had some contact with a woman upon whom one of the characters in Women was allegedly based. The Buk Book is brief, rollicking, sensationalistic, and, I suppose, in the worst of taste. But I doubt it would have bothered Bukowski. I found it often hilarious and a mainly credible addition to other such memoirs.
Those who consider Bukowski, as I do, a writer of permanent stature will want both of these books unless perhaps, in the case of the first, they already possess a copy of Hank. [Gerald Locklin]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Bukowski: A Life by Neeli Cherkovski and The Buk Book: Musings on Charles Bukowski by Jim Christy Gerald Locklin Neeli Cherkovski. Bukowski: A Life. Steerforth, 1997. 352 pp. Paper: $18.00; Jim Christy. The Buk Book: Musings on Charles Bukowski. Photos by Claude Powell. ECW Press, 1997. 89 pp. Paper: $12.95. Writers such as Charles Bukowski or Thomas Wolfe, whose fictions constitute virtual autobiographies, are perhaps the most difficult for biographers to deal with and yet are also the most in need of external investigation. Neeli Cherkovski’s book is not the definitive biography of Bukowski, but it is a useful start and written in the clear, direct style of the master. Its strength resides in the soother’s close access to the subject during their early friendship, his obvious affection for Bukowski’s democratizing work, and the material from interviews that Bukowski eventually consented to. One wishes, on the other hand, that there had been more corroboration, especially of Bukowski’s youth, from research. Also, this volume is, as the copyright page admits, only “a slightly different version” of Cherkovski’s Hank, The Life of Charles Bukowski, published by Random House in 1991. This book purports to include the “wilder stories” which Bukowski regretted were previously omitted, but they are hard to find, as the inadequate index and notes have not been significantly improved. Still, the limited bibliography has been updated. I have made use of Hank in my own work and will no doubt be consulting this version. Other accounts of Bukowski’s life are reportedly forthcoming. One regrets the omission of the photos by Michael Montfort that appeared in Hank. The Buk Book, although lifting much of this information from other sources, uncited, does provide some of those wilder, hairier anecdotes of the Rabelaisian Buk, but the “musings” seem largely a justification for the publishing of the outlandishly bawdy photos. A young Claude Powell was apparently a carousing buddy of Bukowski’s from 1969 into the ‘70s. Jim Christy corresponded with Bukowski in 1984 and had some contact with a woman upon whom one of the characters in Women was allegedly based. The Buk Book is brief, rollicking, sensationalistic, and, I suppose, in the worst of taste. But I doubt it would have bothered Bukowski. I found it often hilarious and a mainly credible addition to other such memoirs. Those who consider Bukowski, as I do, a writer of permanent stature will want both of these books unless perhaps, in the case of the first, they already possess a copy of Hank. [Gerald Locklin]

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