''Off the Road: Twenty Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg'' is an autobiographical
book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
by
Carolyn Cassady
Carolyn Elizabeth Robinson Cassady (April 28, 1923 – September 20, 2013) was an American writer and associated with the Beat Generation through her marriage to Neal Cassady and her friendships with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other promin ...
. Originally published in 1990 as ''Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg'', it was republished by London's
Black Spring Press
Black Spring Press is an independent English publishing house founded in the early 1980s.
The first Black Spring publication was a reprint of Anais Nin's ''D.H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study'', which on its first publication in 1932 had been ...
, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian a ...
's ''
On the Road
''On the Road'' is a 1957 novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across the United States. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonis ...
''. ''Off the Road'' recounts the history of
Carolyn Cassady
Carolyn Elizabeth Robinson Cassady (April 28, 1923 – September 20, 2013) was an American writer and associated with the Beat Generation through her marriage to Neal Cassady and her friendships with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other promin ...
, wife of Jack Kerouac's traveling companion and ''On the Road''s hero
Neal Cassady
Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s.
He was prominently featured as himself in the "scroll" (first d ...
. As Neal's wife and Kerouac's intermittent lover, Carolyn Cassady was well situated to record the inception of the
Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatio ...
and its influence on American culture.
''Off the Road'' begins in the initial stages of Kerouac and Neal Cassady's friendship, when Kerouac was a struggling author trying to publish his first novel (1950's ''
The Town and the City
''The Town and the City'' is a novel by Jack Kerouac, published by Harcourt Brace in 1950. This was the first major work published by Kerouac, who later became famous for his second novel '' On the Road'' (1957). Like all of Jack Kerouac's major ...
''), and documents important moments in the beat movement such as the success of ''On the Road'' and
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
's "
Howl
Howl most often refers to:
*Howling, an animal vocalization in many canine species
*Howl (poem), a 1956 poem by Allen Ginsberg
Howl may also refer to:
Film
* ''The Howl'', a 1970 Italian film
* ''Howl'' (2010 film), a 2010 American arthouse b ...
."
Publication history
*1990, UK,
Black Spring Press
Black Spring Press is an independent English publishing house founded in the early 1980s.
The first Black Spring publication was a reprint of Anais Nin's ''D.H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study'', which on its first publication in 1932 had been ...
, 436 pp, hardcover,
*1990, USA,
William Morrow, 436 pp, hardcover,
*1991, UK,
Penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...
. 1 August 1991, 464 pp, paperback,
*2007, UK,
Black Spring Press
Black Spring Press is an independent English publishing house founded in the early 1980s.
The first Black Spring publication was a reprint of Anais Nin's ''D.H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study'', which on its first publication in 1932 had been ...
, 12 July 2007, 448 pp, paperback,
See also
*''
Love Always, Carolyn'', 2011 documentary film on Carolyn, covering similar subject material.
References
*Darlington, Andy. "Carolyn Cassady: On and Off the Road." ''Moody Street Irregulars: A Jack Kerouac Magazine'' 24-26 (1991), 13-18.
External links
Interview with Carolyn Cassady on ''American Legends''Interview with Carolyn Cassady on BBC website(not longer available)
Victoria Mixon's Interviews with Carolyn Cassady
{{Allen Ginsberg
Books about the Beat Generation
2007 non-fiction books
On the Road
Jack Kerouac