Carolyn Cassady emerse come figura centrale della Beat Generation, la sua vita intrecciata con quella del marito Neal Cassady e le amicizie con altre figure di spicco del movimento. Servì sia da musa che da voce della ragione, trovandosi al centro di un'era vibrante di libertà, sperimentazione e ricerca spirituale. Mentre i suoi contemporanei maschili si crogiolavano nell'ethos "on the road", Cassady spesso manteneva i piedi per terra, assumendosi responsabilità domestiche e osservando con preoccupazione mentre le generazioni più giovani emulavano gli impulsi autodistruttivi dei loro predecessori.
Neal Cassady was a living legend immortalized in the bible of the Beat generation, Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." In this vivid account of the people who brought this country into the 1960s, Neal's wife captures the turbulence and raw excitement of her years with Cassady, Kerouac, and poet Allen Ginsberg.
All the components of the Jack Kerouac legend are here: the excesses of alcohol and drugs; the soul-searching; the characters - Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Lucien Carr, John Clellon Holmes and William Burroughs, Jack's mother, Gabrielle, and the other women in Kerouac's life. There is also a record of the travels that became the basis for On the Road and Visions of Cody, the death-shrouded childhood that became Mexico City Blues and Tristessa, and the stupor of fame that weighed on him as he tried to articulate his torments in Big Sur.
Das Buch untersucht das Liebesdreieck der realen Charaktere Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac und Carolyn Cassady in den späten 1950er und 1960er Jahren.
Here, in what has become a classic of its kind since its publication in 1978, is the fascinating story of Jack Kerouac, "King of the Beats" and American literary legend, recorded through the voices of his friends and lovers. Authors Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee retraced Kerouac's life at home and on the road and talked with the prophets, musicians, poets, socialites, and working people who knew Jack Kerouac. Some are famous like Allen Ginsberg, Gore Vidal, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, among others; and some are not like Jack's boyhood buddies, his lovers, and his barroom companions. All, however, have contributed to a remarkably vibrant, riveting portrait of a life. We see Jack at Columbia University and on the scene of Greenwich Village; speeding across the tarmac of America with Neal Cassidy ("Dan Moriarty" in Kerouac's classic novel, On the Road); at home with his possessive mother; in California, drinking wine and talking Buddhism; and finally, in Florida, where his life ends tragically at forty-seven years old. Jack's Book, like Kerouac's novels, makes a unique contribution to our understanding of a man and a generation that shaped the dreams and visions of those who followed.