Book 51: Pulp by Charles Bukowski

Another enjoyable book by Charles Bukowski.  It checks in at 208 pages and was another quick read.  It was also Bukowski's last novel and was published in 1994, shortly before his death.

The novel is dedicated to bad writing, which stole my heart.  It is a sort of pulp novel but really plays with the conventions of the pulp novel, satirizing and almost ridiculing it.  It starts out as a detective crime novel but branches out to other pulp themes such as alien invasions, mafia loan sharks and death, hunting someone who has so far escaped her.

The characters are good, the protagonist, Nicky Belane, is a detective, a Henry Chinasky stand-in and a thinly-veiled reference to Mickey Spillane.  He is hired by several people, including Lady Death, to solve cases.  He's not a very good P.I. but he blunders and punches his way to solutions to most of them.

While not as good as most of his earlier books, this novel was enjoyable and a very funny commentary on the pulp genre.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that liked his other novels and anyone that likes books by authors like Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Robbins or Ken Kesey.

8 out of 10.