Women
The previous chapter of the fame: the readings and the women before the movie people arrived.
Read our take
Hollywood
Bukowski watched Hollywood film his life, then did the most Bukowskian thing possible: he turned the experience into another novel.
- 1989
About Charles Bukowski
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeHollywood, published by Black Sparrow Press in 1989, is Charles Bukowski's comic novel about the making of Barfly, the 1987 film Barbet Schroeder directed from Bukowski's own screenplay. Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's fictional alter ego, is hired to write a movie about his early drinking years and then watches the machinery of film production — financing collapses, star egos, producers, endless meetings — grind toward an actual premiere. The industry's real figures appear under thin fictional names, and the novel doubles as a firsthand record of one of the strangest productions of the 1980s, written by its least impressed participant.
The story, in more detail
Chinaski, comfortable at last in his sixties, is talked into writing a screenplay about his younger self by a persistent French director — a fictionalized Barbet Schroeder, who in reality spent years keeping the Barfly project alive and once filmed himself threatening self-harm to force a studio's hand. The novel follows the production's whole absurd arc: money found and lost, actors attached and detached, and the premiere at which Chinaski watches his own life performed.
Around the film runs the late-Bukowski world: the harbor house, the wife, the wine, the racetrack, and the author's astonishment at respectability. The comedy is gentler than in the early books; the target is an industry too ridiculous to need exaggeration.
The full plot
Henry Chinaski, now an established writer living quietly with his wife Sarah, is asked by a French director named Jon Pinchot to write a screenplay. He agrees, largely out of curiosity, and writes a film about his drinking years.
The novel follows what happens next: the financing that appears and vanishes, the producers, the agents, the actors, the endless meetings, and the slow discovery that a film is made by a hundred people who each want something different from it.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
The film gets made and released. Chinaski watches it, is neither destroyed nor transformed by the experience, and goes home. The satire never tips into revenge.
Themes and analysis
Arriving in Marina del Rey
At Marina del Rey, Chinaski turns a pleasant coastal view into an argument about belonging. He imagines the sailors untouched by ordinary work, then admits that he scarcely exists for them. The imbalance matters: his contempt cannot disturb their comfort. Even the unusually agreeable sand, water and breeze seem to him like privileges allocated to other people. Sarah's impatience with his alarm gives the scene a second perspective. His outsider stance may expose social distance, but it is also something he performs before entering the house.
The question after the meeting
After the meeting's prolonged talk, Sarah asks the practical question that its participants have not settled. Chinaski's brief refusal supplies the scene's punchline, but the preceding narration has already called this the first of many such gatherings. The reader therefore hears resistance from someone who will remain involved. His attraction to the hospitality also complicates the pose of complete refusal. By ending with private dialogue rather than an agreement, Bukowski makes entry into the film world feel hesitant and contradictory, not like a decisive conversion to a new career.
Why we recommend it
The funniest late Bukowski
Success mellowed the voice without dulling it; the industry does the work of villainy on its own.
A real production, recorded
Barfly's making — one of the strangest of its decade — survives here in detail no biography matches, told from inside.
An author watching his life become a film
Chinaski’s distance from the production lets readers question what happens when a private history becomes an industry’s project.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Henry Chinaski
Bukowski's alter ego, here writing the screenplay Bukowski actually wrote — the novel's events follow the making of Barfly closely.
Jon Pinchot
The French director who commissions the screenplay and spends years getting it financed. He stands for Barbet Schroeder, who directed Barfly.
Sarah
Chinaski's wife, steady through the Hollywood chaos. She stands for Linda Lee Bukowski.
Timeline
1979–1986
Bukowski writes the Barfly screenplay for Barbet Schroeder; financing collapses and revives for years.
1987
Barfly is released, with Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway.
1989
Black Sparrow Press publishes Hollywood, the novel of the production.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Black Sparrow Press
- 1989
- Paperback
- Ecco
- 2007
- 9780061478321
Reader reviews
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Pulp
The last novel: after the industry satire, a parody of pulp fiction with death itself as a character.
Read our takeHollywood: frequently asked questions
What is Hollywood by Charles Bukowski about?
The 1989 novel fictionalizes the making of Barfly, the 1987 film written by Bukowski and directed by Barbet Schroeder. Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's fictional alter ego, writes a screenplay about his early drinking years and then watches the film industry turn it, absurdly, into an actual movie.
Is Hollywood based on real events?
Yes — closely. The film in the novel is Barfly, and the director, stars and producers appear under thin fictional names. The production's real chaos, including years of collapsed financing, is the novel's plot.
Do I need to see Barfly before reading Hollywood?
No. The novel explains everything it mocks. Seeing the film afterward is the better order: the novel tells you what it cost.
Who is the director in the novel?
The persistent French filmmaker is a fictionalized Barbet Schroeder, who really did spend years forcing Barfly into existence and later made The Charles Bukowski Tapes from his filmed conversations with the author.
When was Hollywood published?
Black Sparrow Press published it in 1989, two years after Barfly reached cinemas.
Is Hollywood about a real film?
Yes — the making of Barfly, released in 1987, which Bukowski wrote and Barbet Schroeder directed. The novel renames the participants but follows the events.
Who is Jon Pinchot?
The French director in the novel who commissions Chinaski's screenplay and spends years financing it. He stands for Barbet Schroeder.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Hollywood, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1Charles Bukowski (Poetry Foundation)
WebsiteUsed forBiographical and bibliographic backbone: the career arc, the Black Sparrow relationship, and the book's place in it.
2Charles Bukowski timeline (bukowski.net)
WebsiteUsed forPublication dates, publishers, and chronology checked against the bukowski.net timeline.
3Charles Bukowski: books and chapbooks (Verdant Press checklist)
WebsiteUsed forBibliographic details cross-checked against the Verdant Press checklist.
4Hollywood — edition record
Official recordOpen Library, Internet ArchiveUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
5Hollywood — primary excerpt in Dorion Sagan's review
NovelDactyl Review, 2010Used forBoth scene readings use the primary excerpt, not the reviewer's account of the film or author.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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