Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America

I got this after having seen Kerouac's original manuscript scroll on display at the Denver Public Library. This book is fascinating! It reads so smoothly and gives you just about all the info you could possibly ever want to know about Kerouac and his 'beat' cronies.

This is a biography, but as the fluid phrases turn and the images flow, you are transported into the time and space inhabited by Kerouac, and his band of unruly "beats." The reproduction of NYC locales where Kerouac hung out are painstakingly recorded in this book...you could make a checklist of buildings, streets, and landmarks to visit in Manhattan so that you know where to tread where the great Piscean hipster had once tread. McNally adores every character in this tale, but his adoration seldom gets in the way of his unbiased depiction. I could be mistaken, but he even adopts some of Kerouac's run-on writing techniques to parallel this portrayal with a stylistic homage. As a snobby lit major and aspiring writer, I was skeptical about whether a History scholar could entice me with a lively writing style, or could do justice to the life of a great writer. McNally has done both with sheer brilliance. The words sparkle, the images shock, comfort, and familiarize you within this strange world. This is not a dull, turgid historical text. It is a living, freewheeling account of life's ultimate beauty through the pathos and elation of it all. Buy the damn book!

I can't believe more people haven't written reviews of this book! It's essential if you're a Kerouac fan. It's by far the best-written word pictures of the bigger world Jack lived in. In fact, based on how well it was written and the accurate big picture it captured, Jerry Garcia found the author and brought him in to do the same thing for The Grateful Dead as their official biographer. [see A Long Strange Trip] I've got pretty much every Kerouac or Beat bio published, and other than the oral biography 'Jack's Book' which is in a class of it's own because its just a bunch of quotes, this is the best because of how it marries a passion for the subject with a creative historian's eye. it has the same graphic, visual enthusiasm of Jack's voice, mind and writing, without being a cheap imitation. hmm, not unlike how Jimmy Herring's guitar playing in the Jerry-less Dead -- creating from the same pool of color and intent, painted with a similarly deft stroke, but unique and only imitative in subtle knowing energy loving ways. The main vision of this work is how it paints the bigger canvas of the cities, culture, and country that Kerouac lived in. Other books may tell the ABCs of where Jack went when, and Jack's own books paint well the person he meets at the roadside coffee shop, but Jack was doing a series of small intimate portraits. Only indirectly and by implication did he write about popular culture and mores, or the politics and global events that were shaping the nation's mind. This book is only comparable to cultural histories or documentaries on NY or SF or America of say 1940 to 1960. What this did for me was fill in the picture of what was going through the minds of all the "neat-necktied producers and commuters of America" that Jack was surrounded by but never really entered their world. What WAS the America that Jack rejected and stepping out of onto his Dharma Path? thank god Kerouac captured what was going on in the hip pioneers' cabins in the rare clusters of non-conformity that were the embryos of the entire counter-culture soon to blossom, but obviously most serious broad-minded historians don't love Jack enough to set their studies around his story. so equally thank god we've got one historian Jack-channeler who fills in the sets around jack's characters. Just to be clear, the book Is all about Jack and the people in his life, it's not Mostly a 40s / 50s history book, there's just More of that big picture stuff in here than in any other Jack bio. For me, there was more of an 'ah-ha' in this book, as I understood more all the other people walking along Market Street and filling Times Square and commuting to the suburbs of Queens and Las Gatos.

This is an excellent choice for a reader wishing to gain a broad perspective on the Beat Generation's major and minor characters, their relationships to each other and their significance as artists. Within this framework, Kerouac is the focus. Not a definitive Kerouac biography, but will leave you longing to read one. I recommend Kerouac's book of letters next, than either Charters' or Nicosia's biography followed by Jack's Book (which is composed entirely of third party opinions and stories, etc about kerouac).

An outstanding review of the influence of the "beats" on America and how success ultimately crushed Jack Kerouac. It gives a fascinating glimpse into the stories behind the novels that Kerouac published. A definate must read for any fan of the "beats" or historian.