Loving and Hating Charles Bukowski

Book excerpt: Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. There are many books about Charles Bukowski, but none like this one. Linda King's LOVING & HATING CHARLES BUKOWSKI looks at Bukowski from the other side of the mirror. It is raw, it is raucous, it is a no-holds- barred account of their five-year, on- again off-again relationship, a relationship so intense and passionate, so deep and so tender, that it makes your heart ache to watch it flame up and then flame out. This is not a scholarly examination of Bukowski but it deepens and enriches our understanding of the man and his world, written from the heart with love. It is funny, it is tragic, it is exuberant, it is heartbreaking, it is an important addition to our knowledge not only of the poet laueate of the underclass, but of the whole underground literary scene in LA and elsewhere in the 1970s, told from the perspective of a strong, liberated woman, an artist in her own right, who gave as good as she got.