Pulp: A Novel - Tapa dura

Bukowski's final novel is a slightly surreal pastiche of the classic Mickey Spillane, Chandleresque private dick novel. Nick Belane, is a lonely, middle-aged, egotistical, alcoholic private detective who is badly in need of some lucrative work, but what he gets is a series of increasingly strange assignments from a bizarre collection of clients. He is asked to track down the long-dead French classical author Celine and an elusive red sparrow. He encounters aliens, heavies and even lady Death herself along the way. All the while Belane is convincing himself that he's still a white-hot detective and that nobody can take him for a ride, or indeed make him feel he's losing his mind. Boozing heavily and trying to avoid getting beaten up in every bar along the way, he finally reaches the conclusion that he's washed up. Bukowski's deliberately overdone writing takes us on a fantastical ride through the dark corners and dodgy dealings of Belane's film-noir world with guns, broads and heavyset thugs. A great demonstration of Bukowski's imaginative talents.

Charles Bukowski was one of America's best-known writers and one of its most influential and imitated poets. His Beat Generation writing reflects his slum upbringing, his succession of menial jobs and his experience of low-life urban America. He died in 1994 and is widely acknowledged as one of the most distinctive writers of the last fifty years.