my mother, poor fish, wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile! why don't you ever smile?" and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the saddest smile I ever saw

This play was a one-off performance. I've always had the geographical and spiritual feeling of being here. He was then 49 years old.

In 1986 Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". His writing was influenced by the social cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles. [is that] he combines the confessional poet's promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero.