Post Office

Post Office is the first novel by the American writer Charles Bukowski, published in 1971. It is an autobiographical account of the years he spent working for the United States Postal Service.

Henry Chinaski is the character who stands in for him, and the book is the first appearance of the anti-hero who would go through the rest of Bukowski's fiction. It is the first of the books about him, and he starts as a substitute mail carrier in Los Angeles, California.

He leaves the job and lives for a while on what he wins at the race track, then returns as a mail clerk, and the novel follows him through the drift of those years, with a good deal of drinking in them.

It covers roughly the period from 1952 to his final resignation in 1969, and it is dedicated to nobody. Bukowski worked for the postal service on and off across those years, and the book stays close to what he did. The film rights were sold in the early 1970s, though no film was ever made.