Letter To John Martin | Charles Bukowski

: He observes the physical and mental decay of those stuck in jobs they hate—how their eyes lose color, their voices become "ugly," and they become "empty shells" with "fearful and obedient minds".

“I have one advantage: I have lived the life of a loser. I have slept in doorways. I have watched the whores and the drunks and the madmen. I have felt the air and the light and the time and the space. Nobody else is writing about these people. They are writing about tea parties and middle-class neurosis. I write about the blood in the gutter.” charles bukowski letter to john martin

That exchange—the rage, the vulnerability, and the acceptance—became the blueprint for the next 30 years. Bukowski quit the Post Office in 1969. He wrote Post Office in three wild weeks. He followed it with Factotum , Women , and Ham on Rye . : He observes the physical and mental decay