Revisit the "Beat Generation" with Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac shot to literary fame in 1957 with the publication of his iconic book of the Beat Generation, On the Road.

Kerouac was termed "King of the Beats," a mantle he was entirely uncomfortable with. Along with Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure and several others forged a new literary voice and attitude. It was a movement that often mocked and challenged the American status quo.

Within only a few years of being heralded as the voice of a new generation, however, Kerouac was aging, severely alcoholic, and suffering from a death of the spirit.
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Arguably his finest post-On the Road novel, Big Sur captures Kerouac (here named Jack Duluoz) trying to escape the clamor of beatnik adulation by retreating to a peaceful cabin in Big Sur, Calif. What begins as a pastoral regeneration descends into a personal hell when Kerouac suffers an alcoholic breakdown. Written in Kerouac's elegantly poetic and rapid-fire prose, Big Sur is both beautiful and horrific, a clear-eyed recollection of facing down his many demons and willing himself to survive them.

Our annotated version contains a wealth of new material for both the casual reader and the student of Beat Generation literature. 





​​Big Sur by Jack Kerouac
Ebook edition: $9.99, 210 pages, 2012
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Paperback edition: $14.95, 234 pages, 2014 
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Audio edition: $19.95, 6 hours, 10 minutes, 2017
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Maggie Cassidy is one of Kerouac's most tender recollections of his past, focusing on his first true love when he was a high school senior and a local star athlete.

Filled with the sweet innocence of youth and the daily heartbreak of quarrels and unfulfilled sexual yearnings, Kerouac employs his stylishly Beat observations toward the nostalgic time period of pre-World World II torn between the companionship of his gang of buddies and the sirens' call of the title character. Also, Kerouac is especially evocative in reproducing the slangy teen-speak of the late 1930s.

Maggie Cassidy by Jack Kerouac
Ebook edition: $9.99, 198 pages, 2013
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Paperback edition: $15.95, 284 pages, 2015 
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Note: Our print edition proudly restores the original novel, complete and uncensored.

Audio edition: $19.95, 5 hours, 30 minutes, 2016
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In 1955, Kerouac detoured from his cross-country American travels to Mexico City where a group of junkie expatriates he had known from the New York City post-War scene had gone for the cheap and plentiful supply of heroin and morphine.

Fellow Beat writer William S. Burroughs had introduced Kerouac to Bill Garver (named Old Bull Gaines in the novel), who had in turn introduced Kerouac to Esperanza Villanueva (Tristessa). Kerouac fell under the spell of Tristessa's dark allure and exotic surroundings. Tristessa, however, proved to be a far more troubled and contentious companion than Kerouac had bargained for.



Tristessa by Jack Kerouac
Ebook edition: $9.99, 89 pages, 2013
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Paperback edition: $15.95, 2017 
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Audio edition: $6.95, 2 hours, 14 minutes, 2016
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