Ham on Rye follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's alter-ego, through his troubled high school years to the beginning of a long and destructive struggle with alcoholism. Henry's early experiences are a mix of wry misadventure and emotional turmoil. He struggles with women, sports, his own writing, and, most heartbreakingly, his father - a monster of a man who looms large over almost every page of this wise and tough account of adolescence.