Chapters 1 through 6 Summary

Henry Chinaski is an aging white male alcoholic who gains fame as a poet. He performs various readings, pursues alcohol with a vengeance, and meets various people along the way. Henry finds men largely uninteresting and chooses to focus nearly all of his attention on women—and for Henry, women equate nearly entirely with sexual intercourse. Over the course of the novel, Henry describes sexual relationships with a variety of women in a variety of circumstances that, eventually, become monotonously repetitive.

Henry Chinaski, the narrator and protagonist of the novel, is fifty years old. He has been divorced once, has a six-year-old daughter with whom he has virtually no contact, and is an alcoholic. Henry has not had sex for four years and although he looks at women and masturbates, he holds out no hope of a successful sexual engagement...