An autobiographical novel, forceful like a precise uppercut, that shows us a very different vision of the "American Dream", a vision "from below", from the downtrodden and humiliated: the childhood, adolescence and youth of Henry Chinaski, in Los Angeles, during the years of the Depression and World War II. A brutal father who pretends to go to work punctually every day so that his neighbors don't suspect that he is unemployed; a mother beaten by her father, who is nevertheless always on her side; an uncle who is wanted by the police; a world of bosses, of superiors terrorized by other superiors. The young Chinaski - something like an outcast brother of Holden Cauldfiel, Salinger's sweet hero in The Catcher in the Rye - has to learn the implacable rules of a very tough survival. In this unforgettable book, written with a total absence of illusions, a stoic brotherhood with all the chinaskis, all the chinaskis, all the underdogs of the "other America" of the backyards, the seedy bars, unemployment offices.