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A poignant masterpiece of wrenching personal expression from the author of On the Road and The Dharma Bums

Five years after On the Road, the book that made him an overnight celebrity, Kerouac examines with wrenching clarity his unwished for fame, escalating alcoholism, and troubling alienation from nature. In a thinly veiled autobiographical account of his time in Big Sur at the... Read Full Overview

A poignant masterpiece of wrenching personal expression from the author of On the Road and The Dharma Bums

2019 Reprint of 1962 Edition. Coming down from his carefree youth and unwanted fame, Jack Kerouac undertakes a mature confrontation of some of his most troubling emotional issues: a burgeoning problem with alcoholism, addiction, fear, and insecurity. He dutifully records his... Read Full Overview

In 1960 Jack Kerouac was near breaking point. Driven mad by constant press attention in the wake of the publication of On the Road, he needed to 'get away to solitude again or die', so he withdrew to a cabin in Big Sur on the Californian coast. The resulting novel, in... Read Full Overview

Big Sur was written some time after Kerouac's best-known work, following a visit to northern California and the first ravages of midlife crisis. The book reveals Kerouac's burgeoning problem with alcoholism, the mental duress aggravated by his unwanted fame, and his quest for... Read Full Overview