is proof positive that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. As Shaw's old friend and literary mentor Charles Bukowski once told him, most of this book would have to be lived before it could be written. In that sense, is much more than a compelling, page-turning chronicle of a popular working-class hero's creative evolution. It is a multicolored, cinematic modern-day Odyssey, written in blood, ink and tears - a kaleidoscopic, visionary roadmap to the journey of the human soul.