Henry Chinaski an outcast a loner & a hopeless drunk drifts around America from one dead-end job to another from one woman to another & from one bottle to the next. Uncompromising gritty hilarious & confessional in turn his downward spiral is peppered with black humour. Factotum" follows Charles Bukowski's bestselling " Post Office" his highly autobiographical first novel. Bukowski's Beat Generation writing reflects his slum upbringing his succession of menial jobs & his experience of low life urban America. He died in 1994 & is widely acknowledged as one of the most distinctive writers of the last fifty years. Neeli Cherkovski was a close friend of Bukowski & is the author of " Hank: The Life of Charles Bukowski" (Random House 1991)."