Absence of the Hero

One of the most irreverent figures of the twentieth-century literature, Charles Bukowski was an extremely prolific author; after publishing over 50 books, many significant stories and essays remain uncollected or unpublished. Absence of the Hero is an anthology of this scattered body of work, most of it unseen in decades. Beginning with his early magazine fiction from the late 1940s, Absence of the Hero takes the reader on a countercultural journey through the literary battles of the '50s, the psychedelic upheaval of the '60s, the narcissistic pleasures of the '70s, and the Reaganite dystopia of the '80s. Along the way Bukowski furnishes tales of his infamous public readings, reviews of his own work, hilarious installments of his newspaper column, "Notes of a Dirty Old Man," and a number of newly discovered, previously unpublished gems. Yet the book also demonstrates the other Bukowski—an astute if offbeat literary critic. From his own "Manifesto" to his idiosyncratic evaluations of Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creely, LeRoi Jones and Louis Zukofsky, Absence of the Hero reveals the intellectual hidden beneath his gruff exterior.