The Holy Goof and my own Dean Moriarty(s)

The Holy Goof by the late William Plummer is a biography of one of the greatest literary figures to never write anything substantial--his best-known work is a fragment of a letter. But Sherlock Holmes' words to Watson might also describe Neal Cassady's relationship to Jack Kerouac (On the Road), Allen Ginsberg (Howl), Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and Jerry Garcia (leader of the Grateful Dead): "Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it."

Ca...