He brought everyone down to earth, even the angels -- LEONARD COHEN In an age of conformity, Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad * * Observer * * Sometimes funny and always sad, Ham on Rye is written in an admirably hard, bare, vivid style * * Times Literary Supplement * * Both powerful and, where appropriate, extremely funny * * Sunday Telegraph * * Reflective, humane, tremendously evocative and absorbingly readable * * The Times * * A scorching account of a childhood, adolescence, a life of ugliness, pain, escape, alcohol, loneliness. Often it is's funny - often it's disturbing - Ham on Rye is a powerful book -- RODDY DOYLE A Laureate of American low life * * Time * * This great novel is Bukowski's supremely honest account of a twisted childhood -- Howard Sounes * * author of Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life * * The Thing about Bukowski is, when you read what he has to say, he's right -- SEAN PENN Raunchy yet lyrical, occasionally hilarious while abysmally sad * * San Francisco Chronicle * *