Desolation Angels

by Jack Kerouac

Overview

Originally published in 1965, this autobiographical novel covers a key year in Jack Kerouac’s life—the period that led up to the publication of On the Road in September of 1957.

After spending two months in the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington, Kerouac’s fictional self Jack Duluoz comes down from the isolated mountains to the wild excitement of the bars, jazz clubs, and parties of San Francisco, before traveling on to Mexico City, New York, Tangiers, Paris, and London.

Duluoz attempts to extricate himself from the world but fails, for one must “live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.” Desolation Angels is quintessential Kerouac.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212233682
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	10/22/2024
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) was an American novelist and poet who influenced generations of writers. He is recognized for his style of spontaneous prose and for being a pioneer of the Beat Generation. His first novel appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, published in 1957, that epitomized the beat philosophy to the world. This novel created a sensation by chronicling a spontaneous and wandering way of life in a style that seemed founded both on jazz and on drug-induced visions. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, he attended local Catholic schools and eventually Columbia University. He published eighteen novels and several collections of his poetry.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Kerouac was a breath of fresh air when he came on the literary scene. He was also a force, a tragedy, a triumph, and an ongoing influence, and that influence is still with us." —Norman Mailer "Kerouac ... defines the sensibilites of members of his own subgeneration: we knew them as wearing such guises as the Beat Generation, the Subterraneans, the Dharma Bums; now we see them as Desolation Angels, sadly pursuing their empty futilities..." —Nelson Algren "Each book by Kerouac is unique, a telepathic discord. Such rich natural writing is nonpareil in later 20th century, a synthesis of Proust, Celine, Thomas Wolfe, Hemingway, Genet, Thelonius Monk, Basho, Charlie Parker and Kerouac's own athletic sacred insight. Jack Kerouac was a 'writer' as his great peer William S. Burroughs says." —Allen Ginsberg

Editorial Reviews

Desolation Angels explains perhaps even better than the other Kerouac novels what the place of religion may have been in the Beat mystique.”

National Book Award winner and New York Times best Nelson Algren

One of the most true, comic, and grizzly journeys in American literature.”

Time

If the Pulitzer Prize were given for the book that is most representative of American life, I would nominate Desolation Angels.”

The Atlantic Dan Wakefield

"If the Pulitzer Prize were given for the book that is most representative of American life, I would nominate Desolation Angels." 
—Dan Wakefield, The Atlantic

"One of the most true, comic, and grizzly journeys in American literature."
—Time

"Kerouac was a breath of fresh air when he came on the literary scene. He was also a force, a tragedy, a triumph, and an ongoing influence, and that influence is still with us."
—Norman Mailer

"Kerouac ... defines the sensibilites of members of his own subgeneration: we knew them as wearing such guises as the Beat Generation, the Subterraneans, the Dharma Bums; now we see them as Desolation Angels, sadly pursuing their empty futilities..."
—Nelson Algren

"Each book by Kerouac is unique, a telepathic discord. Such rich natural writing is nonpareil in later 20th century, a synthesis of Proust, Celine, Thomas Wolfe, Hemingway, Genet, Thelonius Monk, Basho, Charlie Parker and Kerouac's own athletic sacred insight. Jack Kerouac was a 'writer' as his great peer William S. Burroughs says."
—Allen Ginsberg

From the Publisher

One of the most true, comic, and grizzly journeys in American literature.”

Time