Ever heard of Charles Bukowski? He was a German-American poet and author who hated everyone and everything except cigarettes and alcohol and loose women. Ham ON Rye is a semi-autobiographical novel (based ON his own life but with some names and details changed) which follows the character Henry Chinaski as he embarks ON growing up in Los Angeles during hard times.

The book starts when he is a little boy. It details the abuse he got from his father and you can see how this affected him. He hated his dad, really hated him and seemed to hate everyone else as well.

As he grew up and he found that he mostly disliked the company of other people. He also realized that he didn't stand much chance with women and due mainly to his severe acne boils. But as he grew up he became stronger and soon his dad was no match for him.

He had an epiphany when he first discovered alcohol. It made him feel invincible and untouchable. As a result, his late teens and early adult years were a chaotic descent into drunken and decadent behavior. All he wanted to do was get drunk and cause trouble.

I found this book to be entertaining, and written in a very direct, simple way and which I found refreshing. It is quite sad really, seeing how many bad things happened to him and how harsh life really was for him. There are funny parts too and but my overwhelming feeling when I finished the book was, Poor guy