This novel follows the fortunes of Wesley Martin, a man who Kerouac said 'loved the sea with a strange, lonely love; the sea is his brother and sentences. He goes down.' Kerouac began this work not long after his first tour as a Merchant Marine on the S.S. Dorchester in the late summer of 1942 during which he kept a journal detailing the gritty daily routine of life at sea. Inspired by the trip, which exemplified Kerouac's love for adventure and the...

A quintessential American family is pulled apart by war and the rapidly changing tides of society in Jack Kerouac's captivating first novel Published seven years before his iconic On the Road, Jack Kerouac's debut novel follows the experiences of one family as they navigate the seismic cultural shifts following World War II. Inspired by Kerouac's own New England youth, the eight Martin children enjoy an idyllic upbringing in a small Massachusetts...

From the Publisher: A deluxe edition of Kerouac's masterpiece on the 50th anniversary of its first publication. First published in 1958, a year after On the Road had put the Beat generation on the map, The Dharma Bums stands as one of Jack Kerouac's most powerful, influential, and bestselling novels. The story focuses on two untrammeled young Americans-mountaineer, poet, and Zen Buddhist Japhy Ryder and Ray Smith, a zestful, innocent writer-whose...

Part of "The Duluoz Legend, a multivolume autobiographical saga recording the major events of the author's life"--Page 761.

Excerpts from his diaries chronicle a pivotal era in Kerouac's life, describing the creation of his first novel; his special friendships with Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady; and his own take on the events described in "On the Road."

The first collection of letters between the two leading figures of the Beat movement. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg are the most celebrated names of the Beat Generation, linked together not only by their shared artistic sensibility but also by a deep and abiding friendship, one that colored their lives and greatly influenced their writing. Editors Bill Morgan and David Stanford shed new light on this intimate and influential friendship in this fascinating...

Story of two restless young men in the late 1940s who cross and recross America, encountering parties, girls, drugs, loneliness and their own dreams along the way.