Henry Chinaski is a drunken derelict, the literary alter ego of Charles Bukowski himself. The story's plot is autobiographical; the author depicts tumultuous relationships with various women he meets while working at the post office. The story beats are relatively static and slice-of-life but slowly seem to gain momentum and pile into a beautiful mess. We don't root for Chinaski because he's misogynistic and temperamental, but we care for him because he's brutally honest and unmistakably human. Indeed, even in someone as depraved and troubled as Chinaski, we sympathize with his weaker, more sensitive moments. His qualms with American work life are our own: tyrannical bosses, the nausea of repetition, pretense, etc. What the plot lacks in structure the story makes up for in substance and character. We start to believe that his alcoholic crutch isn't so different from our own, whatever it may be. That is the interest in the character: that we see fleeting glimpses of ourselves; the shades of someone we love, hate, condemn, or even wish to become.
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