Do you think it was a factor that your writing didn't begin to achieve commercial acceptance until the advent of the late 60s with its anti-war attitude?
No, my writing in the 60s hardly mentioned war. I think that I had written so many hundreds of thousands of words that I just evolved into a style that was my own and with a pretty sordid background I had plenty of material to play with. I was given a column which I called NOTES OF A DIRTY OLD MAN and I let roll with a bang. Anything and everything that came to my mind. I had nothing to do with the Peace and Love, Anti-War, pro-drug culture. I despised all that, I just wrote about what I had seen and done and was doing and thinking and it was pretty electric to sit down and write something on a Tuesday night and see it in print on the newsstands on a Friday. I don't know. I just got hot and the outlet was there.
Ace Backwords interview with Charles Bukowski, Twisted Image #40, May 1992
Jack Saunders
Garage Band Books
Box 10501
Panama City, FL 32404
Copyright © 2005 by Jack L. Saunders, Jr.