Point of View

The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski. There is no consistent point of view. Most of the tales are narrated in the first person, past tense as Charles Bukowski himself, rather than as his favorite alter ego, Henry Chinaski, as in many writings. Others are told in the third-person, past tense. Except when the story is narrated anonymously, Bukowski figures as a character, usually with his status as a professional writer forming the subject of the characters' conversations. Dialog is used extensively. Several of the stories can be seen refitted to the Chinaski character and incorporated within a larger context in Bukowski's autobiographical novels Post Office and Factotum.

Bukowski almost always writes about his own depraved life of alcohol, sex, and violence. He writes with no shame and applies maximum shock value whenever possible. Many of...