Jack Kerouac, Beat Generation, 1957

A play that Kerouac wrote around the time of writing On the Road, but was only discovered in 2005 in a New York attic. The entire play is just a group of friends mostly “shooting the shit”, easy dialogue that rarely scratches below the surface, though Kerouac’s weighing up of his Catholicism against his interest in Buddhism finds a voice in the third act. A minor piece very much of its time and place, the most useful inclusions in this edition are the brief bibliography and biography of Kerouac that, when combined, succinctly sum up his life and not inconsiderable troubles in just fifteen pages.  PY

MORE ON JACK KEROUAC :  BEAT MUSEUM  |  PENGUIN 'JACK KEROUAC' MINISITE  |  WIKIPEDIA