Fourteen Months and Two Weeks Downtown

Fans of Charles Bukowski’s poetry undoubtedly will love Sacramento writer Max West’s new novel, a detailed account of a dissolute youth spent “on the grid.” The stream-of-consciousness style is strangely compelling—in spite of occasional grammatical glitches that West, in a preface, claims are intentional. Although I’d prefer a smoother, more edited approach, West has a knack for description and a gift for language that supports his rather breathless style. Some readers may find the Holden Caulfield-meets-street-people tenor of this novel a bit precious, but it does have a certain fascination. We can only hope West, who also writes for local zine Knowhere?, will spend as much time on plot as he does on language in his next fictional venture. The novel is available at The Book Collector.