On the Road (Penguin 20th Century Classics)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140185216 ISBN 13: 9780140185218

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1991

In its time, Kerouac's masterpiece was the bible of the Beat Generation. Now, this modern classic goes racing toward the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy, and autobiographical passion, swinging to the solemn rhythms of 1950's underground America.

Review:

On The Road, the most famous of Jack Kerouac's works, is not only the soul of the Beat movement and literature, but one of the most important novels of the century. Like nearly all of Kerouac's writing, On The Road is thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lovers, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest levels of American thought and culture.

About the Author:

Jack Kerouac(1922-1969), the central figure of the Beat Generation, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Among his many novels are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, and Visions of Cody.
Ann Charters is the editor of The Portable Sixties Reader, The Portable Jack Kerouac, two volumes of Jack Kerouac's Selected Letters, and Beat Down to Your Soul. She teaches at the University of Connecticut.