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Ham on Rye follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter ego, through his early years: a harrowingly cheerless childhood, acne-riddled high school years, and adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D.H. Lawrence. A crude, brutal and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming of age during the Great Depression, centered on his difficult relationship with his father. Widely considered Bukowski's finest novel.