The Lonesome Traveller (Kerouac, Jack) - Softcover

Kerouac, Jack

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802130747 ISBN 13: 9780802130747

Publisher: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994

Synopsis

In his first frankly autobiographical work, Jack Kerouac tells the exhilarating story fo the years when he was writing th books that captivated and infuriated the public, restless years of wandering during which he worked as a railway brakeman in California, a steward on a tramp steamer, and a fire lookout on the crest of Desolation Peak in the Cascde Mountains.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

In this restless, exciting book, Jack Kerouac covers the Los Angeles waterfront, Mexico, New York, Paris and London. He reveals a way of life – the life of the road – and presents his unique philosophy of self-fulfilment. A key Kerouac work, 'Lonesome Traveler' is one of the books that made him the prophet and chronicler of an entire generation.

"Railroad work, sea-work, mysticism, mountain work, solipsism, self-indulgence, bullfights, drugs, churches, streets of cities, a mishmash of life as lived by an independent educated penniless rake going anywhere: 'Lonesome Traveler's' scope and purpose is simply poetry, or natural description."
JACK KEROUAC

"Kerouac's strange mixture of wit, high spirits, incoherence, nobility and odd-ball individualism produces some piquant writing, the best part of its flavour being that peculiarly American strain, the craving for greatness, the hunt for the big experience, a touch of Hemingway and Whitman."
GUARDIAN

"Kerouac has the essentially American gift of describing the physical world so intensely, so poetically, that one sees, hears and feels. 'Lonesome Traveler' is full of startling and beautiful things."
SUNDAY TIMES

"We can be grateful for this reminder of the sense of loss itself, this search for innocence, this prose of observed detail, of high childish delight, of peace and joy and the hymns to the flux and flow and endless diversity of human life"
TLS

About the Author:

Jack Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. Having left college, he joined the merchant marines and began the restless wanderings that were to continue for most of his life. His first novel, The Town and the City, was published in 1950. On the Road, although written in 1951, was not published until 1957 – it made him one of the most controversial and best-known writers of his time. Jack Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Florida at the age of forty-seven.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0802130747
• ISBN 13: 9780802130747
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 182