Book Review

Bukowski Never Did This:
A Year in the Life of An Underground Writer & His Family
by Jack Saunders
Lit Vision Press
http://www.litvision.org/press.html
ISBN: 0-9767153-5-X.

At the very least, Jack Saunders can be considered a pioneer of sorts. His more than 250 books (written over the span of almost 40 years) of what he calls "daily typewriting" are eerily akin to blog entries on the Internet. Heavily influenced by Charles Bukowski, who wrote such seminal and autobiographical novels as Post Office, Saunders's work comprises mostly unedited journal entries chronicling his life, under the fictional name Art Brew (a play, Saunders notes, on "art brut"), as a 60ish man who, along with his wife, struggles to make ends meet on the gulf coast of Florida during what should be their retirement days. Bukowski, of course, was largely supported by his publisher John Marin, freeing him to write for a living. Saunders, like the rest of us, writes when he can: in the mornings, at night, even on the job; which is why his first published novel is titled Bukowski Never Did This: A Year in the Life of an Underground Writer & His Family.

Bukowski Never Did This, LitVision Press' (http://www.litvision.org/press.html) first offering, is actually three of Saunders's "books" combined: Bukowski Never Did This, A Poor Man's Like a Gopher in a Tub, and Orts. Each book spans approximately three-month periods of Saunders's diary entries, his online columns, and his query letters to publishers, along with an actual "novel" that details the adventures (however mundane) of Art Brew. What differentiates Saunders's personal diary entries from the personal adventures of Art Brew, you ask? Saunders's diary entries function more like metatext of the novel—marketing, ideas, etc., whereas the novel documents the actual events of Art Brew's life.

Confused yet? Even after reading the press packet distributed with Bukowski, I didn't quite comprehend the organization of the book until halfway through it, when Art relates on p. 109 that "[H]e was writing what turned out to be a series of related books, about being an underground writer, an underground writer on the worldwide web, a man using the worldwide web to write the Great American Novel online, daily, something new under the sun." Each novel is renamed several times during the course of Saunders writing it; big, unwieldy names that usually have more significance for Saunders than the reader. The novels also stop at undefined times, usually when Saunders has approached a certain word length (or begins a new job).

Unfortunately, the confusing navigation of Bukowski is more the result of sloppy editing than avant-garde writing, something Saunders rails against throughout (editing, not avant-garde writing). His work, as he describes in a diary entry, is a "...live, improvisational, one-take, rough-cut mix. Not an overdubbed, reworked, overproduced, market-driven, pro-wrestling, lip-sync, show-biz act." There are, of course, two schools of thinking on this. Those authors who participate in the revision, a multiple-draft process, usually are those that get published; those authors who don't usually aren't. Few established authors, canon or otherwise, have become well-known, respected authors using the second method. Of course, there are always a few that slip in—like Bukowski—whose work usually is embraced by the fringe and eventually is given accolades by the mainstream because of its novelty, not merit.

Whether Saunders will slip in like Bukowski still remains to be seen. Judging by his volume of work and list of rejections, it seems increasingly unlikely. What is a real shame is that Jack Saunders (or Art Brew, as you have it) has led and continues to lead an interesting life. His sons are bluegrass musicians and local celebrities. He has a web site on which he publishes and sells his work to his devoted readers, the Buzzard Cult. He has a vibrant relationship with his wife Brenda and her extended family. He is well versed in Florida history on the panhandle. Some parts of the book are real page turners; they're easily digestible and highly relatable.

However, is the minutiae of Saunders's ongoing life worthy of a novel? Not really, at least in the classic sense. Blog writing does not translate well into book form. It never has, and it never will, despite the avalanche of self-important blog collections that will no doubt ascend from small, upstart presses during the next few years. There is no drama, no texture in reading simple, present-tense sentences that lay out one's life like a grocery list. Sure, it's true life and it's gritty and real, but it's not literature.

In fact, with the access, the cheap costs, and the underground nature of Internet blogging, why does Bukowski Never Did This even need to be reprinted in the more-traditional book form? If Saunders is as avant-garde and anti-establishment as he thinks, why is he so concerned with representing himself in such an antiquated, rigid "establishment" medium as the printed book, no doubt marketed and printed by some profit-driven publishing conglomerate in New York?

Serious literary ambitions aside, Bukowski Never Did This is a fun, light, mess of a read of an interesting man who, while you'd want to have a beer with, will not be the next Saul Bellow. But then, who of us will? As for as Jack Saunders being the pioneer of literary typewriting, we're glad he's the first, but hope he's the last.