Factotum
The prequel in Chinaski's life: the wandering years of bad jobs before the post office fixed him in place.
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Post Office
Charles Bukowski quit the post office in January 1970 and handed his publisher this novel within weeks. It is the job, turned into literature.
- 1971
About Charles Bukowski
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freePost Office is Charles Bukowski's first novel, published by Black Sparrow Press in 1971, when he was fifty. Its narrator, Henry Chinaski — Bukowski's fictional alter ego — carries mail and then sorts it for the United States Post Office in Los Angeles, and the novel runs on the machinery of the job: supervisors, disciplinary write-ups, time clocks, impossible routes, and the flat refusal of the work to mean anything. Bukowski wrote it in the weeks after John Martin's hundred-dollar-a-month guarantee let him resign from the real post office, and it reads like a man emptying eleven years of accumulated evidence onto the page.
The story, in more detail
Henry Chinaski, a fictional stand-in for Bukowski himself, drifts into work as a substitute mail carrier because it looks easy and turns out not to be: bad routes, dogs, rain, and supervisors who log every minute. He quits, gambles at the racetrack, and comes back years later as a night-shift sorting clerk, where the novel settles into the grind the title promises.
Around the job, the life: drinking, the racetrack, the women Chinaski lives with and loses — among them a version of Jane Cooney Baker, the most important relationship of Bukowski's early life, whose death lands in the book with the flat devastation the style otherwise holds back. The novel ends where Bukowski's own postal years ended, with the resignation that made the book possible.
The full plot
Henry Chinaski takes a job as a substitute mail carrier in Los Angeles because a friend tells him it is easy work. It is not. He is given the routes nobody wants, in rain and heat, with dogs and with supervisors who record every late minute, and he does it hungover almost every day.
He quits, lives for a while on racetrack winnings, and eventually returns to the post office as a night-shift mail sorter — a job that consists of standing at a case and throwing letters into slots for hours, measured against a quota. Eleven years pass this way. Around the job are the rooming houses, the drinking, and the women he lives with and loses.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Chinaski finally quits, sits down with a bottle, and starts writing a novel — the one the reader has just finished. Bukowski wrote it the same way: after resigning from the real post office in January 1970, he produced the book in about three weeks.
Themes and analysis
The Christmas round
The Christmas round looks attractive because Chinaski can set his own pace. Finishing brings another block of deliveries rather than a lasting reward, so his leisurely movement is already a response to how the work is organized. Yet the opening sentence identifies this apparent discovery as an error. The older narrative voice knows what the eager recruit does not. That gap lets the next chapter overturn his expectations: the easy rhythm gives way to waiting, unfamiliar routes and deadlines imposed without enough time to meet them.
The rejected complaint
Thirty pages of complaint produce no visible examination of the evidence. Instead, the official attacks Chinaski's manner of speaking and substitutes Jonstone's long service for an answer about his conduct. The report becomes something to wave, not something to consider. Repeated declarations of the supervisor's worth make the dialogue circular, exposing an appeals process that protects its own hierarchy. Chinaski ends the exchange by echoing the official's judgment, but his unpaid absence the next day keeps the ending from becoming a cost-free victory over that hierarchy.
Why we recommend it
The front door to Bukowski
First novel, defining subject, and the fastest read of the six — most readers should start here.
Work without the mythology
Nothing in American fiction takes clock-punching drudgery more literally: the novel's engine is the job itself, not an escape from it.
An institution seen through daily routines
Rules, routes, and disciplinary notices make the workplace’s power concrete rather than leaving it as a general complaint about employment.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Henry Chinaski
The narrator, and Bukowski's fictional alter ego across five novels. He carries mail, sorts it, drinks, plays the horses, and records the job with a flatness that is the book's whole method.
Betty
The woman Chinaski lives with through the early part of the book, and the closest thing in it to a love. Bukowski drew her from Jane Cooney Baker, the older woman he loved through the 1940s and 1950s, who died in 1962.
Joyce
The wealthy woman Chinaski marries and follows out of state. Bukowski drew her from Barbara Frye, the Texas magazine editor he was married to for about two years in the 1950s.
The Stone
Chinaski's supervisor, and the book's standing antagonist — the human form of the disciplinary machinery, handing out write-ups and impossible routes.
Timeline
1952
Charles Bukowski begins working for the United States Post Office in Los Angeles as a substitute mail carrier.
1958
Returns to the post office as a sorting clerk at the Terminal Annex, the job the novel's second half grinds through.
1970
Resigns in January after John Martin's $100-a-month offer, and writes the novel in the weeks that follow.
1971
Black Sparrow Press publishes Post Office.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Black Sparrow Press
- 1971
- Paperback
- Ecco
- 2002
- 9780061844041
Reader reviews
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Post Office: frequently asked questions
What is Post Office about?
Charles Bukowski's first novel follows Henry Chinaski, his fictional alter ego, through more than a decade as a mail carrier and then a sorting clerk for the United States Post Office in Los Angeles — the supervisors, the time clocks, the drinking and the racetrack around the job, and the resignation that ends it.
Is Post Office based on Bukowski's real life?
Closely, but it is fiction. Bukowski worked for the Los Angeles post office for over a decade, and the novel draws directly on those years, but Chinaski is an exaggerated, rearranged version of his author, and the book should not be read as literal autobiography.
How fast did Bukowski write Post Office?
In roughly a month. He resigned from the post office in January 1970, after the publisher John Martin guaranteed him $100 a month to write full time, and Martin received the manuscript within weeks.
Is Post Office a good first Bukowski book?
Yes — it is the usual recommendation. It is short, fast, funny, and introduces Henry Chinaski, the narrator who carries most of the novels.
When was Post Office published?
Black Sparrow Press published it in 1971, when Bukowski was fifty. Ecco has kept it in print since the Black Sparrow list was sold in 2002.
How long did Bukowski take to write Post Office?
About three weeks. John Martin's guarantee of a hundred dollars a month let him resign from the post office in January 1970, and he delivered the finished novel to Black Sparrow shortly afterward.
Who is Henry Chinaski?
Bukowski's fictional alter ego, first used in a 1965 prose pamphlet and then in five novels. He shares Bukowski's jobs, addresses and habits, but he is a character rather than a strict self-portrait.
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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 Post Office, 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.
4Post Office — edition record
Official recordOpen Library, Internet ArchiveUsed forOfficial record used to verify names, dates, institutional details, or other factual information on this page.
5Post Office — public opening excerpt
NovelHarperCollins; Dial-A-Book excerpt hosted by AbeBooks, 2007Used forPrimary-text evidence from the permission-marked public excerpt; locators follow its displayed chapter labels.
i
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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