In these uncollected writings Jack Kerouac has left us a portrait of himself in his life. He hitches a ride to San Francisco from Southern California with a beautiful blonde, goes on the road with photographer Robert Frank, rides a bus through the Northwest and Montana, records the blues of an old hobo, talks about the Beats and how it all began, gives his Essentials of Spontaneous Prose and defends his novel The Subterraneans, compares Shakespeare and James Joyce, goes to a ball game and a prize fight, and reflects on Celine, on Christmas in New England, on jazz & bop, and tells us what he's thinking about. And in the closing piece cityCityCITY, we're treated to Jack's science fiction vision of the future.

Reading now these various pieces, with all their substantial details so characteristic of Jack's work, I think of particular and how much a part of his way of being with others his attention really was . . . --Robert Creeley, preface

Kerouac offers observations on the Beat Generation, tying it to beatitude and lamenting its appropriation by the Hollywood borscht circuit.' His advice on writing is both incisively amusing (Try never get drunk outside yr own house') and perhaps unhelpful to the less talented (sketching language is . . . blowing' like a jazz musician). --Publishers Weekly

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was a principal actor in the Beat Generation, a companion of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady in that great adventure. His books include On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, Lonesome Traveler, Visions of Cody, Pomes All Sizes (City Lights), Scattered Poems (City Lights), and Scripture of the Golden Eternity (City Lights).