And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks (Penguin Modern Classics) - Softcover

Kerouac, Jack; Burroughs, William S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141189673 ISBN 13: 9780141189673

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2009

Synopsis

In 1944, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs were charged as accessories to murder. One of their friends, Lucien Carr, had stabbed another, David Kammerrer. Carr had come to each of them and confessed; Kerouac helped him get rid of the weapon - neither told the police. For this failing they were arrested. Months later, the two writers - unpublished at the time - collaborated on "And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks", a fictionalized account of the summer of the killing.

About this title

About the Author

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922. Educated by Jesuit brothers in Lowell, he decided to become a writer at age seventeen and developed his own writing style, which he called 'spontaneous prose'. He used this technique to record the life of the American 'traveler' and the experiences of the Beat Generation, most memorably in On the Road and also in The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums. His other works include Big Sur, Desolation Angels, Lonesome Traveler, Visions of Gerard, Tristessa, and a book of poetry called Mexico City Blues. Jack Kerouac died in 1969. William S. Burroughs was born on February 5, 1914 in St Louis. In work and in life Burroughs expressed a lifelong subversion of the morality, politics and economics of modern America. To escape those conditions, and in particular his treatment as a homosexual and a drug-user, Burroughs left his homeland in 1950, and soon after began writing. By the time of his death he was widely recognised as one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the twentieth century. His numerous books include Naked Lunch, Junky, Queer, Nova Express, Interzone, The Wild Boys, The Ticket That Exploded and The Soft Machine. After living in Mexico City, Tangier, Paris, and London, Burroughs finally returned to America in 1974. He died in 1997.

Review

A combination hard-boiled murder mystery and existentialist lament think Dashiell Hammett meets Albert Camus an essential document of the Beat Generation.” Gerald Nicosia, San Francisco Chronicle

[A] persuasive portrait of la vie boheme in all its aimlessness and squalor.” Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe

A literary curiosity, a genuine collectible.” Carolyn See, The Washington Post

Reveals two giants-to-be in the development stages of their craft With its evocative rendition of now-vanished saloons, bygone diners, and other landmarks of yesteryear, Burroughs and Kerouac may have inadvertently done for 1944 Greenwich Village what Joyce did for 1904 Dublin.” George Kimball, The Phoenix (Boston)

"The appearance in print of And the Hippos Were Boiled In Their Tanks by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac is a literary event, not only because it drew two of the three leading Beat writers into confederacy, but because the book told a story of male friendship, gay obsession, and murder that came to fascinate a score of American authors It’s a fascinating snapshot from a lost era. If you’re looking for the link between Hemingway’s impotent post-war drifters in The Sun Also Rises, the barflies and Tralalas of Last Exit to Brooklyn and the zonked-out kids of Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero, look no further.” John Walsh, The Independent

In alternating chapters, Burroughs and Kerouac serve up a noir vision of Manhattan Of the two, Kerouac, then in his early 20s, is the more developed writer, though Burroughs, an absolute beginner, already shows some of the interests and obsessions that will turn up in Naked Lunch and elsewhere, to say nothing of an obviously field-tested understanding of how syringes work For his part, Kerouac recounts wartime experiences in the Merchant Marine, along with notes on the bar scene that would do Bukowski proud.”
Kirkus Reviews

[Hippos] significantly predates Kerouac’s major novels and illuminates his dynamic and productive literary friendship with William S. Burroughs. it is very charming. The conceit of switching back and forth between narrators every chapter also keeps things speeding along it creates the illusion that one is listening to a radio broadcast from one station, only to have the frequency changed every few minutes, with the narrative sometimes overlapping and the two voices bleeding into another.”
Andrew Martin, Open Letters Monthly

Illuminates the links between Sam Spade and Sal Paradise, noir nihilism and Beat exuberance.” Timothy Hodler, Details

If you care about either of these beat masters I don’t see how you can fail to enjoy [And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks]. Slight as it may seem at first glance, it’s an invaluable document of literary history, glimmering with nascent genius.”
Craig Seligman, Bloomberg News

Naughtily sexual and emotionally grimy, written is a prose style that is deadpan-dry and larded with hardboiled atmosphere. This oddly titled novel is an engaging literary and historical curio.” Richard Labone, Between the Lines

Spellbinding. with spot-on dialogue and descriptions of seedy bars and jam-packed apartments, the authors serve up a fascinating look at a time of late night parties, casual sex and a devil-may-care approach to life.” Jackie Crosby, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

An eccentric, engaging, and readable novel What makes the novel particularly fascinating, however, is its ability to provide a window into the early autobiographical styles of both Burroughs and Kerouac as emerging, unpublished writers.”
Marcus Niski, The Sydney Morning Herald

As an insight into the formative years of the Beats, it’s fascinating.”
Nick Rennison, The Sunday Times (London)

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141189673
• ISBN 13: 9780141189673
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224