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by: Jim Christy
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781550223576
ISBN: 1550223577
Label: Ecw Press
Manufacturer: Ecw Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 111
Publication Date: September 01, 1998
Publisher: Ecw Press
Sales Rank: 1930097
Studio: Ecw Press
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
One of the most widely read and influential American writers of the 20th century, Jack Kerouac is often misunderstood. This study examines the confessions of a 20th-century St. Augustine and traces the progress of a great pilgrim through the decline of modern civilization. Christy focuses on the last ten years of Kerouac's life, from the influential New York Times rave review of On the Road until his death in 1969, a period in Kerouac's life that until now has been dismissed by most biographers as nothing more than a drunken decline. Christy asserts that Kerouac was a madman and mystic whose last days were wilder and more fascinating than any of the adventures he wrote about. As Christy reveals, in the last decade of his life Jack Kerouac was racing to obtain his goal of being “safe in heaven dead.”
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Too Brief, but there are High Points
This book tackles the subject of Jack Kerouac. After reading this text, I found myself asking "Is that it?" These are literally the shortest chapters I have ever seen, with several of them spanning only 2 or 3 pages. Compared with the other biographies I've read, this one is too brief and, in a place or two, seems to draw primarily from heresay.
What I liked about this book was that it gave Kerouac a dimension of humanity. Too many biographies dissect their subjects with a mortician's ... Read More
Rating:  - The best book on Kerouac!!!
Forget all the [junk] that most biographers scribble in their dark corners about perhaps the greatest writer of the 20th century (except for perhaps Blaise Cendrars) -- read this book and take a glimpse into Kerouac. Christy has given a great snapshot of the man that was Kerouac. Anyone who slags this book hasn't read it, let it roll around between their ears and finally digest the whole shooting match.
This is a great book!
Rating: - Worse Than It Looks
Christy's book was obviously written for someone doing a Kerouac paper in their high school English class. This is the type of biography you wish had never been published. The fact that it is in print seems to validate what Christy has written. There is so little presentation of known fact--more hearsay and legend than anything else. For instance, Christy claims Kerouac's last words were, "It must have been the tuna fish." I'm shocked neither Charters nor Nicosia were able to dig up this information ... Read More
Rating:  - Kerouac's Soul Revealed
Christy offers an insightful and different look at Kerouac and his works than most biographies. He discusses what was important to Kerouac, such as religion, a topic often given only minimal treatment, and the literary acceptance he wanted but instead received infamy which pushed him along to the grave. Unfortunately, this excellent information is not really integrated into the biography but comes in the last few chapters. (Almost all biographical information about Kerouac's later years is also in ... Read More
Rating: - The Long Slow Death of Jack Kerouac
This book would better be titled: A Short, Superficial, Almost Completely Unannotated Biography of Jack Kerouac and How Cool I Am by Jim Christy. To read this is to read about Jack Kerouac by the only man who claims to REALLY understand him. He gives no reason for you to believe this except his own allegations that it's true. He makes his own mistakes also (the song Beatnik Fly was recorded by "Johnny and the Hurricanes" not "Jay and the Hurricanes" for instance ). The ones that I saw were admittedly ... Read More
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