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The First Third
Immortalized as Dean Moriarty by Jack Kerouac in his epic novel, On the Road, Neal Cassady was infamous for his unstoppable energy and his overwhelming charm, his savvy hustle and his devil-may-care attitude. A treasured friend and traveling companion of Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Ken Kesey, to name just some of his cohorts on the beatnik path, Cassady lived life to the fullest, ready for inspiration at any turn.
Before he died in Mexico in 1968, just four days shy of his forty-second birthday, Cassady had written the jacket blurb for this book: “Seldom has there been a story of a man so balled up. No doubt many readers will not believe the veracity of the author, but I assure these doubting Thomases that every incident, as such, is true."
As Ferlingetti writes in his editor’s note, Cassady was “an early prototype of the urban cowboy who a hundred years ago might have been an outlaw on the range.” Here are his autobiographical writings, the rambling American saga of a truly free individual.
Before he died in Mexico in 1968, just four days shy of his forty-second birthday, Cassady had written the jacket blurb for this book: “Seldom has there been a story of a man so balled up. No doubt many readers will not believe the veracity of the author, but I assure these doubting Thomases that every incident, as such, is true."
As Ferlingetti writes in his editor’s note, Cassady was “an early prototype of the urban cowboy who a hundred years ago might have been an outlaw on the range.” Here are his autobiographical writings, the rambling American saga of a truly free individual.
222 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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About the author
Neal Cassady
13 books162 followersNeal Leon Cassady was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic movement of the 1960s, perhaps best known for being characterized as Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
March 15, 2025
Bisogna tener presente che Cassady non era uno scrittore. Sul serio, non è che ti basta inculare Kerouac per diventare un romanziere, altrimenti io sarei un pianista eccezionale.
Buongiorno, sono Il Pech e oggi parliamo dei Vagabondi.
Cassady davvero non sapeva scrivere. Nonostante il lavoro di traduzione volto senz'altro a semplificare, ci si imbatte in frasi inutilmente tortuose e macchinose. Poi leggi la nota di sua moglie che ti dice che Neal amava Proust ed ecco che tutto si spiega e poi, beh, tutti abbiamo avuto in squadra quello che non la passava mai perché si credeva un fenomeno e invece giocava di merda. Neal molto meglio come personaggio che come autore.
Buongiorno, sono Il Pech e oggi parliamo dei Vagabondi.
Cassady davvero non sapeva scrivere. Nonostante il lavoro di traduzione volto senz'altro a semplificare, ci si imbatte in frasi inutilmente tortuose e macchinose. Poi leggi la nota di sua moglie che ti dice che Neal amava Proust ed ecco che tutto si spiega e poi, beh, tutti abbiamo avuto in squadra quello che non la passava mai perché si credeva un fenomeno e invece giocava di merda. Neal molto meglio come personaggio che come autore.
October 12, 2018
I was about to re-read The First Third, but couldn’t do it again. I found it too painful to think of a little boy living on skid row at the Metro with Shorty and all the Denver down-and-outs; the barber in bed without sheets, drunk; Neal wearing the cruel stepbrother’s hand-me-downs, and “too-short shoes;” and “I was always hungry then,” during the Great Depression. But young, energetic Neal rises above it and somehow finds the light and life and fun in this outcast world, and the rest is fairly well-known Beat history. Beyond Neal being a counter-culture hero or anti-hero, beyond the protagonist of novels, Neal—father, husband, son, brother—a flawed and damaged human with a family, children, a man who went out in the world with little more than a high IQ and a lot of charm and fast talk and exceptional driving skills, and somehow earned a living, and in his own imperfect way, did what he could for as long as he could. Five stars for the document in Neal’s own words that conveys some of his many shortcomings and earthly suffering.
July 7, 2020
Neal Cassady was possibly one of the most famous non-fictional literary figures ever. Written about most famously by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, he also played important roles in the writings of John Clellon Holmes, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, and Sonny Barger. So when the rising stars of the Beat Generation literary movement insisted he try to write a novel, Neal Cassady gave in and tried. The results were not spectacular but for fans of the great American counter-cultures of the 20th century, his book The First Third & Other Writings will probably be worth at least one good read.
The First Third is Neal Cassady’s attempt at writing an autobiographical novel. In the Prologue, he gives accounts of his family history, both from his father’s and mother’s sides. The story of his father’s life and ancestry are detailed, possibly inaccurate, and sometimes you might wonder why Cassady thought to say as much as he did. A similar comment could be made about his mother’s life story and family tree with the addition that it is hard to tell what he meant to say until the mention of his mother’s birth. These passages have their moments but it often reads like Neal Cassady was more concerned with getting the stories on paper than he was in making them interesting. The writing is adequately good and clear in some spots but in other places it is more like lists of information than actual literature.
The main passages of The First Third are all about Cassady’s childhood. Some parts of it are vivid and even exciting. The story takes place during the Great Depression. His father, also named Neal, was a barber and an alcoholic. They spend a lot of time in the streets of Denver and sleeping in skid row hotels while his father gets too drunk to function in any meaningful way. Cassady writes about his wanderings through the city and his exploratory adventures in junkyards and other industrial wastelands. He also goes on a hitchhiking trip across the country with his father. Later in the autobiography, he goes to live with his mother; his older step-brothers are bullies and little Neal watches as they beat the hell out of his father for being drunk. Neal Cassady also begins sexual experimentation with other kids in his neighborhood at a precocious age; a child psychologist would probably attribute this to parental neglect, something that appears to have been a big factor in the childhood of the author. But Neal Cassady never writes as though he feels sorry for himself; this is not victim literature and he often writes as if his obviously painful life were fun and a never-ending adventure.
Some of the most clearly written passages are also the most grotesque. In one instance, six year old Neal enters a hotel room where a drunken bum with no legs is masturbating. This, in itself, does not surprise him but what he does find shocking is that a man in his 40s is able to get a hard-on. The kid had a lot to learn. Another time, his sadistic older brothers torture a cat to death by stomping on its head until its brains pop out. They throw the dead cat down an alley and Neal goes to look at it. He finds, by coincidence, that the corpse landed on a book that had been stolen from him a long time ago. His descriptions of playing doctor with little girls aren’t exactly pretty either.
There are some badly written passages too, in fact, there are lots of them. Cassady often tried to write marathon sentences, going on for as long as he could without using a period. There are many parts that degenerate into nonsense and babbling. There are also several passages where he introduces a character or a plot line then goes off on tangents that lead to further tangents without him ever returning to the original point. Or if he does return to where he started, it doesn’t make sense because the sidetrack went on for so long you forget what it was it was originally meant to be about. Supposedly Neal Cassady wrote this with the intention of writing like his favorite author, Marcel Proust. But writing under such an influence with a mind moving at warp-speed did not do Cassady justice. His writing is too self-conscious to ever really take off and fly for prolonged periods of time. A lot of the times the narrative is like climbing a hill while dragging a bag full of bricks behind you.
But when Neal Cassady wrote at his best, there is someth
ing genuine and stylistically American so that it winds up being tragic that he did not try harder to pursue a literary career. There is something reminiscent of great American authors like Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Saul Bellow, and John Steinbeck in the way he writes about his family and the American experience.
The sections of story fragments and letters at the end of this volume are some of the better narratives. The story about Cherry Mary is hilarious. There is a lot of stuff about stealing cars and some crude sex talk that sounds like male locker room conversations. One chapter is the beginning of a story about a great race car driver that is obviously modeled on Neal Cassady himself. The race car driver always wins in competitions because his mind works 500 times faster than everybody else’s. These passages are more true to the character and personality of Neal Cassady himself. When he doesn’t try too hard to be a great writer, his inhibitions come down, his self-consciousness disappears, and he writes the way he thinks. This still isn’t great literature but it is more interesting and true to life than what Cassady wrote in The First Third.
This book is not going to have wide appeal. The writing is not great and it will not speak to most readers. It definitely is an item of interest for those who are in love with the Neal Cassady mythology. Despite the rough pacing and confusing descriptions, this still comes across clearly as his own genuine voice rather than a version of the man as portrayed by other great writers. There is just enough good writing here to make you wish he had tried harder as an author. Neal Cassady was probably too manic, too energetic, too scatter-brained to really sit down for long periods in order to concentrate on writing in earnest. Then again, we are fortunate that he lived the way he did because the whirlwind of his life stirred up so much interesting culture and controversy in his wake. We are fortunate that he chose the life of a wild role model rather than a writer, even if he was a bad role model.
https://grimhistory.blogspot.com/
The First Third is Neal Cassady’s attempt at writing an autobiographical novel. In the Prologue, he gives accounts of his family history, both from his father’s and mother’s sides. The story of his father’s life and ancestry are detailed, possibly inaccurate, and sometimes you might wonder why Cassady thought to say as much as he did. A similar comment could be made about his mother’s life story and family tree with the addition that it is hard to tell what he meant to say until the mention of his mother’s birth. These passages have their moments but it often reads like Neal Cassady was more concerned with getting the stories on paper than he was in making them interesting. The writing is adequately good and clear in some spots but in other places it is more like lists of information than actual literature.
The main passages of The First Third are all about Cassady’s childhood. Some parts of it are vivid and even exciting. The story takes place during the Great Depression. His father, also named Neal, was a barber and an alcoholic. They spend a lot of time in the streets of Denver and sleeping in skid row hotels while his father gets too drunk to function in any meaningful way. Cassady writes about his wanderings through the city and his exploratory adventures in junkyards and other industrial wastelands. He also goes on a hitchhiking trip across the country with his father. Later in the autobiography, he goes to live with his mother; his older step-brothers are bullies and little Neal watches as they beat the hell out of his father for being drunk. Neal Cassady also begins sexual experimentation with other kids in his neighborhood at a precocious age; a child psychologist would probably attribute this to parental neglect, something that appears to have been a big factor in the childhood of the author. But Neal Cassady never writes as though he feels sorry for himself; this is not victim literature and he often writes as if his obviously painful life were fun and a never-ending adventure.
Some of the most clearly written passages are also the most grotesque. In one instance, six year old Neal enters a hotel room where a drunken bum with no legs is masturbating. This, in itself, does not surprise him but what he does find shocking is that a man in his 40s is able to get a hard-on. The kid had a lot to learn. Another time, his sadistic older brothers torture a cat to death by stomping on its head until its brains pop out. They throw the dead cat down an alley and Neal goes to look at it. He finds, by coincidence, that the corpse landed on a book that had been stolen from him a long time ago. His descriptions of playing doctor with little girls aren’t exactly pretty either.
There are some badly written passages too, in fact, there are lots of them. Cassady often tried to write marathon sentences, going on for as long as he could without using a period. There are many parts that degenerate into nonsense and babbling. There are also several passages where he introduces a character or a plot line then goes off on tangents that lead to further tangents without him ever returning to the original point. Or if he does return to where he started, it doesn’t make sense because the sidetrack went on for so long you forget what it was it was originally meant to be about. Supposedly Neal Cassady wrote this with the intention of writing like his favorite author, Marcel Proust. But writing under such an influence with a mind moving at warp-speed did not do Cassady justice. His writing is too self-conscious to ever really take off and fly for prolonged periods of time. A lot of the times the narrative is like climbing a hill while dragging a bag full of bricks behind you.
But when Neal Cassady wrote at his best, there is someth
ing genuine and stylistically American so that it winds up being tragic that he did not try harder to pursue a literary career. There is something reminiscent of great American authors like Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Saul Bellow, and John Steinbeck in the way he writes about his family and the American experience.
The sections of story fragments and letters at the end of this volume are some of the better narratives. The story about Cherry Mary is hilarious. There is a lot of stuff about stealing cars and some crude sex talk that sounds like male locker room conversations. One chapter is the beginning of a story about a great race car driver that is obviously modeled on Neal Cassady himself. The race car driver always wins in competitions because his mind works 500 times faster than everybody else’s. These passages are more true to the character and personality of Neal Cassady himself. When he doesn’t try too hard to be a great writer, his inhibitions come down, his self-consciousness disappears, and he writes the way he thinks. This still isn’t great literature but it is more interesting and true to life than what Cassady wrote in The First Third.
This book is not going to have wide appeal. The writing is not great and it will not speak to most readers. It definitely is an item of interest for those who are in love with the Neal Cassady mythology. Despite the rough pacing and confusing descriptions, this still comes across clearly as his own genuine voice rather than a version of the man as portrayed by other great writers. There is just enough good writing here to make you wish he had tried harder as an author. Neal Cassady was probably too manic, too energetic, too scatter-brained to really sit down for long periods in order to concentrate on writing in earnest. Then again, we are fortunate that he lived the way he did because the whirlwind of his life stirred up so much interesting culture and controversy in his wake. We are fortunate that he chose the life of a wild role model rather than a writer, even if he was a bad role model.
https://grimhistory.blogspot.com/
August 22, 2013
Even though I am a huge Neal Cassady fan, I am only giving this book three stars... It is very slow moving, over-written, over detailed, ugh... I always found it ironic that Neal Cassady's mercurial, on-the-move personality translated as slow and methodical on the page, while Kerouac's slow and deliberate personality translated as hyper-kinetic on the page! Go figure. Persona/ voice, I know.
I recommend this book for Beat fans. It is probably the truest story we will ever get of Cassady's bleak life -- seedy SRO hotels, boxcars, broken homes and depression-era depressing stuff. Also, there is a lot of bonus material which is interesting. Letters written by Neal, speaking with his natural voice, are really entertaining and far better than this attempt at prose. There are some notes by Carolyn Cassady and other stories as well, so if you are a fan it is a must have for your shelf.
I recommend this book for Beat fans. It is probably the truest story we will ever get of Cassady's bleak life -- seedy SRO hotels, boxcars, broken homes and depression-era depressing stuff. Also, there is a lot of bonus material which is interesting. Letters written by Neal, speaking with his natural voice, are really entertaining and far better than this attempt at prose. There are some notes by Carolyn Cassady and other stories as well, so if you are a fan it is a must have for your shelf.
July 9, 2018
Müharibədən sonraki Amerikan ədəbiyyatına öz inqilabi görüşləri və şeirləri ilə daxil olan Neal Cassady-nin avtobioqrafik əsəri. Bu qısa kitabın əvvəli Nealin ailəsinin mənşəyi, onların Amerikaya gəlib çıxmağı və tanış olmağından bəhs edir. Ortalarda isə Nealin öz adından danışdığı, Böyük Böhrandan sonra əyyaş atası ilə yaşadığı səfil həyatı ən xırda təfərrüatına kimi nəql olunur. Üzləşdiyi inanılmaz kasıblıq (kilsələrin verdiyi pulsuz yeməklərlə dolanan bir ailə), pedofillərlə mübarizə, atasının səfil, əyyaş həyatı Nealin bütün həyatını formalaşdırır, uşaqlıqdan ədəbsiz böyüyən bu gənc ömür-gününü də bu şəkildə davam etdirir. Əsərin son hissəsi arvadı Caroline tərəfindən tapılan Nealin əlyazmaları və məktublarını əhatə edir. Əsərdə həddən çox seksual ifadələr, kobud hərəkətlər təsvir olunub, 16 yaşdan kiçik şəxslərin oxumağını məsləhət görməzdim. 1950-60-cı illər Amerikasının Denver vilayətinin səfil həyatını oxumaq istəyənlər üçün maraqlı bir avtobioqrafiya ola bilər. Bu, sizə maraqlı deyilsə, bu kitabdan uzaq durun :)
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March 22, 2013favorite book ever. the language is one flowing poem. 35 word sentences and a drawing of a seven year old vagina (drawn by a seven year old boy) plus soul touching lines like, "So love goes, so life goes, so I go. Carry on my brother." -NC
October 22, 2015
I honestly didn't know what to expect from this book, suffice to say my expectations weren't high. But this book surprised me at first, & as I got used to it, I just dug it more & more. It's rare I enjoy the formative childhood years included in any biography - not caring for my own & somehow always denying their vast effects on the later psyche - but in this book, I really didn't want them to end &, if the later aspects were not so telling of Neal the Man, I would have been upset once it got on to such tales as his meeting of Ginsberg & later sexual exploits (& insane drug-fuelled cross-country romp with Kesey's people the book ends with, Cassady amazingly self-aware of & wonderful about his storied alter-ego Moriarty).
Though unmistakably coloured by latter-day Neal-brain, his childhood tellings are just more exciting than most things I've ever read. His writing is certainly not that of Kerouac or any other serious writer, but his specific brand of innocence or sincerity (neither of which are good terms to use given Neal's exploitive - though even this word easily contradicted in his vast man-duality - nature) is enough to drive the whole narrative. I have never read Proust, but blasting through each page, I couldn't help but think of him in Cassady's almost noble attempts to sound writerly & precise with his reminisces. I chuckled as in Carolyn's afterword she explains how influenced by Proust he was during his writing of the majority of the book proper. Speaking of his influences, something I (for some reason) found surprising was Cassady's love of reading even since a child. He becomes absolutely infatuated with the Count of Monte Cristo while in single digits, & (funnily, I thought, given all perspective) later in life recommends Jack read Gogol.
A whole lot, really, is surprising. Or at least new. The thing is with the Beats, you read a Ginsberg biography & learn a whole lot about Burroughs & Jack, & read a Burroughs biography & fill in some spare details here & there & then read a Kerouac biography & you're reading a whole bunch of the same stuff in each instance (intertwined as their lives were). Neal's past as a criminal & Don Juan are always summarized in a paragraph here, & he is (from my own experiences) always typecast right into the Moriarty mold, even by those who I think should know better & do him more justice. This book really opened my eyes to Neal. He really had a lot in him - I really mean a lot. He certainly was an artist in his own way. It is (perhaps) unfortunate his lifestyle was as consistently inconsistent as it was & that he did not have the discipline to write more. But, if he did too much, perhaps he wouldn't be him. (Bah, it's not really true. Jack lived plenty before his success, & that didn't stop him writing his millions of words.)
In any case, for any Beat fans, this book is as important as any outside the core canon. After reading a biography on your favourite of the main three, this should be next. That's what I think. Think it too or do not.
Hare Krishna, motherfuckers.
Though unmistakably coloured by latter-day Neal-brain, his childhood tellings are just more exciting than most things I've ever read. His writing is certainly not that of Kerouac or any other serious writer, but his specific brand of innocence or sincerity (neither of which are good terms to use given Neal's exploitive - though even this word easily contradicted in his vast man-duality - nature) is enough to drive the whole narrative. I have never read Proust, but blasting through each page, I couldn't help but think of him in Cassady's almost noble attempts to sound writerly & precise with his reminisces. I chuckled as in Carolyn's afterword she explains how influenced by Proust he was during his writing of the majority of the book proper. Speaking of his influences, something I (for some reason) found surprising was Cassady's love of reading even since a child. He becomes absolutely infatuated with the Count of Monte Cristo while in single digits, & (funnily, I thought, given all perspective) later in life recommends Jack read Gogol.
A whole lot, really, is surprising. Or at least new. The thing is with the Beats, you read a Ginsberg biography & learn a whole lot about Burroughs & Jack, & read a Burroughs biography & fill in some spare details here & there & then read a Kerouac biography & you're reading a whole bunch of the same stuff in each instance (intertwined as their lives were). Neal's past as a criminal & Don Juan are always summarized in a paragraph here, & he is (from my own experiences) always typecast right into the Moriarty mold, even by those who I think should know better & do him more justice. This book really opened my eyes to Neal. He really had a lot in him - I really mean a lot. He certainly was an artist in his own way. It is (perhaps) unfortunate his lifestyle was as consistently inconsistent as it was & that he did not have the discipline to write more. But, if he did too much, perhaps he wouldn't be him. (Bah, it's not really true. Jack lived plenty before his success, & that didn't stop him writing his millions of words.)
In any case, for any Beat fans, this book is as important as any outside the core canon. After reading a biography on your favourite of the main three, this should be next. That's what I think. Think it too or do not.
Hare Krishna, motherfuckers.
May 21, 2012
The First Third, Neal Cassady's 'autobiography', starts off really well, especially the first 80 pages or so but as Cassady biographers have revealed through their extensive research, this can hardly be called an accurate portrait of his childhood and life which is partly due to Cassady's own notorious and well-celebrated habit of self-mythologizing and partly due to his father telling a young Neal many 'facts' which later turned out to be inaccurate or in some cases totally wrong (See David Sandison's excellent biography, Neal Cassady: The Fast Life of A Beat Hero for more details).
However, putting these arguments aside, there are some great moments throughout this book and it is almost painful to wonder just WHAT THIS BOOK MIGHT HAVE BEEN! had Neal sat down and finished it...but now we will never know. Jack Kerouac believed in Cassady's potential as a writer and in fact Kerouac's whole spontaneous bop prosody style of writing comes from a famous letter Neal wrote to Jack and often referred to as the 'Joan Anderson' letter. In my opinion, Neal's fascinating style of writing comes across to greater effect through his letters to Jack and Ken Kesey and others and in The First Third, it is clear that he is really trying hard to adopt a 'literary' and therefore FORCED style which is out of whack with his real-life character. Therefore, while this is an intersting read and I certainly enjoyed it, especially his descriptions of skid-row Denver growing up in the 30s and 40s, I would point any reader eager to discover more about Cassady to either the excellent published collection of his letters or to the very insightful biography by David Sandison. These two books will give you more of an insight into the real Neal Cassady.
Cassady certainly led a troubled life but he has undoubtedly left a huge legacy and an indelible mark on the American hip and alternative scene (I prefer not to use the popular term 'counterculture' because I believe he was VERY much part of the culture in his own special way).
Finally, I also recommend that you check out the recently released, "Magic Trip" which features some fascinating footage of Kesey, Cassady and the Merry Band of Pranksters. Neal stars as 'Sir Speed Limit' and you get a bit of an idea about the crazy infectious level of energy that he exuded.
However, putting these arguments aside, there are some great moments throughout this book and it is almost painful to wonder just WHAT THIS BOOK MIGHT HAVE BEEN! had Neal sat down and finished it...but now we will never know. Jack Kerouac believed in Cassady's potential as a writer and in fact Kerouac's whole spontaneous bop prosody style of writing comes from a famous letter Neal wrote to Jack and often referred to as the 'Joan Anderson' letter. In my opinion, Neal's fascinating style of writing comes across to greater effect through his letters to Jack and Ken Kesey and others and in The First Third, it is clear that he is really trying hard to adopt a 'literary' and therefore FORCED style which is out of whack with his real-life character. Therefore, while this is an intersting read and I certainly enjoyed it, especially his descriptions of skid-row Denver growing up in the 30s and 40s, I would point any reader eager to discover more about Cassady to either the excellent published collection of his letters or to the very insightful biography by David Sandison. These two books will give you more of an insight into the real Neal Cassady.
Cassady certainly led a troubled life but he has undoubtedly left a huge legacy and an indelible mark on the American hip and alternative scene (I prefer not to use the popular term 'counterculture' because I believe he was VERY much part of the culture in his own special way).
Finally, I also recommend that you check out the recently released, "Magic Trip" which features some fascinating footage of Kesey, Cassady and the Merry Band of Pranksters. Neal stars as 'Sir Speed Limit' and you get a bit of an idea about the crazy infectious level of energy that he exuded.
August 6, 2014
For a long time I didn't think any of Neal's writing had really survived so I was very pleasantly surprised to find this. I kept thinking how great it was to finally be able to read something by him and try and get a glimpse of what Jack, Alan and Carolyn saw in him.
In a way a lot of what he was writing about was very shocking and so hard to imagine today. Being a kid with an alcoholic father, living in homeless shelters and eating at soup kitchens. He obviously had a really hard childhood and it's no wonder he spent time in jail and had a rather "flexible" attitude towards others property. It was also interesting to see how he had so few women who were important to him growing up. The only way he seemed to be able to relate to them, even as a young child was through sex. Which was the other shocking thing. Was he really having sex at 8 or was that just the continuation of the myth of Neal? If he was it was pretty horrific to think that much sex abuse was happening to the kids in Denver. (The casual mention of the girl abused by her Uncle and how she taught everyone else was pretty harrowing).
I have to say I enjoyed the style a lot. It was very much like Kerouac. If you read it slightly tipsy you could here it in either of their voices. I didn't find it plodding at all.
One thing that really struck me at the end was how in his letters to Ken Kasey he talked about visiting Jack and Bill Burroughs. In the biographies they always tend to put his time with Ken in a totally different chapter, and separate it out from his life with the beats. But this showed how they were still all intermingled.
I am really glad I read this. It was such an interesting insight into Neal and the subculture of the time. I borrowed this from the library but will definitely be buying a copy and getting copies of the letters that have been printed as well.
In a way a lot of what he was writing about was very shocking and so hard to imagine today. Being a kid with an alcoholic father, living in homeless shelters and eating at soup kitchens. He obviously had a really hard childhood and it's no wonder he spent time in jail and had a rather "flexible" attitude towards others property. It was also interesting to see how he had so few women who were important to him growing up. The only way he seemed to be able to relate to them, even as a young child was through sex. Which was the other shocking thing. Was he really having sex at 8 or was that just the continuation of the myth of Neal? If he was it was pretty horrific to think that much sex abuse was happening to the kids in Denver. (The casual mention of the girl abused by her Uncle and how she taught everyone else was pretty harrowing).
I have to say I enjoyed the style a lot. It was very much like Kerouac. If you read it slightly tipsy you could here it in either of their voices. I didn't find it plodding at all.
One thing that really struck me at the end was how in his letters to Ken Kasey he talked about visiting Jack and Bill Burroughs. In the biographies they always tend to put his time with Ken in a totally different chapter, and separate it out from his life with the beats. But this showed how they were still all intermingled.
I am really glad I read this. It was such an interesting insight into Neal and the subculture of the time. I borrowed this from the library but will definitely be buying a copy and getting copies of the letters that have been printed as well.
May 29, 2019
When I was around eighth grade or freshman in high school I read a book by Thomas Wolfe called "The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test". I won't explain that book, which I enjoyed immensely, but one little paragraph made me a fan of Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac in that book. It described Neal Cassady the first time Tom Wolfe ever met him. It's funny that I didn't ever start reading Kerouac until I was in my thirties or forties, and the only thing I know of by Cassady is this, and I never read it until now. (I am now 64 years old) But anyway, that is why I chose this book to read. Cassady was a harmless rogue. He grew up on skid row in Denver with his alcoholic father. The writing in this book is his and describes that time extensively. There is a small chapter written by Carolyn Cassady, his widow, and the rest of it is letters from him to various friends. I really liked reading the stuff, but Cassady is not what I would call a great writer. He rambles and has sentences that go for a whole page sometimes which I found frustrating. I like him because of the character he was. A devil may care, pill popping, rapping, (talking commentary constantly) expert driving, living being among the great beatnicks and hippies of the world. That is why I enjoy reading about him and why I liked this book the way I did. I think it's too bad he dissipated himself so because he (and Kerouac) never lived past their forties. I was so disappointed when I learned and realized that. But hey, "Only the good die young" right?
May 21, 2010
it's not a good book, but Neil is in there, you can read him slapping these words out in a craze, and to get in the head of this man is worth the trip it takes to get through the book.
November 20, 2007
Only stupid people would ask for Cassidy to punctuate or change his writing style. He wrote this book during more destructive parts of his life, as the writing clearly illustrates. As he moved closer to the end, his mind became exceedingly interested writing with more disorganization, often challenging himself to see how long he could write a single sentence. This is a great look into the self destructive nature of a great counter culture hero.
July 1, 2024
It’s interesting finally reading something by Neal Cassady, instead of about Neal Cassady. His legend preceeds him; the speed angel Dean Moriarty in On the Road, a sensual Greek sculpture brought to life as an all-American jock in Ginsberg poems, the speed-freak driver of Furthur in the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test… Hearing his own childhood described in his own words was somehow much different than this myth-like man described in the aforementioned books. There is something fragile and endearing in his detailed descriptions of his childhood as a hobo’s son in the Depression; living in a men’s homeless shelter politely turning down drinks offered to him by decades-older bums, almost being sexually assaulted by a strange man in an alleyway, wailing and crying alone in a boxcar speeding through the Midwest believing his father had been left behind in another nameless town… There was a fragility and sensitivity in this American hero that can only truly be found in his own words.
Only later in this book, in the excerpts of letters sent to Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey, can we find the legend of Neal Cassady, on the road, speeding and fucking and tripping across America.
Only later in this book, in the excerpts of letters sent to Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey, can we find the legend of Neal Cassady, on the road, speeding and fucking and tripping across America.
August 14, 2022
The First Third & Other Writings by Neal Cassady (City Lights 1971) (971.3) (3675).
Neal Cassady is a hippie-beatnik-Beat countercultural legend. He was there for all of the fun of the Fifties and Sixties. If there is a single character who could look back on that era and say, “Been there done that,” it was Cassady.
The stories are apparently all true. He was Jack Kerouac’s model for Dean Moriarty in On the Road. He was Ken Kesey’s pal and was a Merry Prankster. He was there at La Honda and at The Acid Tests. He drove the Pranksters in Kesey’s psychedelic school bus “Furthur” (the slogan painted on the front of the bus read “Caution: Weird Load”) on a round-trip from San Francisco to Millbrook, New York to visit Timothy Leary at the “League For Spiritual Discovery.” Cassady was friends with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Herbert Huncke. Cassady was literally a speed freak, both in a pharmaceutical sense and while behind the wheel. He was a trusted and valued member of the Grateful Dead’s inner circle.
The First Third & Other Writings is a collection of Cassady’s work. I read this rather disjointed volume to seek a sense of Cassady’s perspective on his own exploits.
There’s not a whole lot to The First Third & Other Writings. When Cassady died of exposure in the Mexican desert, he left behind numerous letters and segments of narratives that he intended to include in an autobiography. These were gathered and published after his death. They may reveal something about the guy, but one has to go to the stories of other writers to properly place the great Neal Cassady into historical perspective.
He was a hippy’s hippy, a freak’s freak, and a Deadhead’s Deadhead.
He’s my kind of guy.
Long live Neal!
My rating: 7/10, finished 8/12/22 (3675).
September 3, 2015
I think and feel that if Neal hadn't of died before completing this, it would have faired better for me. But as it is (incomplete, followed by blurry and fast paced fragments and dizzyingly fast paced letters), I don't get a strong enough experience here to legitimize four stars.
But it's not bad, what is there. Only three chapters and an interestingly extensive prologue (dealing with the family history of his mother and father), the book is a find for any that is curious enough about it.
The writing style is interesting (and sometimes
Frustrating), and to think it helped inspire so many writers to write in similar styles (Kerouac being the most obvious example). After reading this book I don't feel inspired to write that way, at least not as I did after reading Hunter S. Thompson's tripped out drug affair Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. I think while Neal did his best to fly off the handle, Hunter kept at least one hand on the wheel.
One thing that got me thinking while reading this book was how carefree and mobile Neal was. The guy traveled merely to travel, a child-like anxiety to move move move at all costs. For one thing, it made me envious. i wish I could hope a train and just end up somewhere or nowhere. Secondly, it made me more curious about Neal as a human being. What the hell is driving this guy? Is it just the kick of adventure that he gets off on, or is it something more, something deeper?
I honestly don't know if there's still people like that, out in the world today. The 21st century tends to make complacent, cynical and lazy human beings out of us all. But there's always hope, and of course, there's always the open road.
But it's not bad, what is there. Only three chapters and an interestingly extensive prologue (dealing with the family history of his mother and father), the book is a find for any that is curious enough about it.
The writing style is interesting (and sometimes
Frustrating), and to think it helped inspire so many writers to write in similar styles (Kerouac being the most obvious example). After reading this book I don't feel inspired to write that way, at least not as I did after reading Hunter S. Thompson's tripped out drug affair Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas. I think while Neal did his best to fly off the handle, Hunter kept at least one hand on the wheel.
One thing that got me thinking while reading this book was how carefree and mobile Neal was. The guy traveled merely to travel, a child-like anxiety to move move move at all costs. For one thing, it made me envious. i wish I could hope a train and just end up somewhere or nowhere. Secondly, it made me more curious about Neal as a human being. What the hell is driving this guy? Is it just the kick of adventure that he gets off on, or is it something more, something deeper?
I honestly don't know if there's still people like that, out in the world today. The 21st century tends to make complacent, cynical and lazy human beings out of us all. But there's always hope, and of course, there's always the open road.
July 29, 2015
So Neal Cassady is Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's On the Road and plays himself in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test plus he was pals with Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs and Ken Kesey and assorted other writers, so of course he'd write a book. I think his life was his art more than his writing was. It's not a badly written book, but is a little scatter brained. But it was interesting to get some background into the dude who inspired Kerouac. As he admits, he read some Proust and felt like he wanted to have a remembrance of things past and so gave tons of childhood details. It would have been nice if he finished and wrote the second third with more stories of him and Jack.
March 30, 2011
There are a couple of editions of this - the earlier one (1971, I think), which I read sometime in the last century, drops us in medias res, as we start with 6-year-old Neal, hop-scotching his way to kindergarten from Denver's skid row in the 1930s, having somehow been granted the dubious privilege of being the only one of quite a few half-siblings and siblings to live with his wino father, while the rest remain with his mother.
This more recent (1981) edition prepends a bunch of temporarily lost material, describing the emigration of all his grandparents in the third quarter of the 19th century and his parents upbringing and meeting - valuable historical material and well worth reading but the more conventional structure lacks a bit of the literary flair of the earlier version.
This more recent (1981) edition prepends a bunch of temporarily lost material, describing the emigration of all his grandparents in the third quarter of the 19th century and his parents upbringing and meeting - valuable historical material and well worth reading but the more conventional structure lacks a bit of the literary flair of the earlier version.
June 25, 2013
I read the first edition, which I bought at City Lights Bookstore the day it came out, I guess 1971. I only saw Neal once: he walked into City Lights and totally electrified the place - he had charisma like a lightning bolt. Amazing. All he did was sit there and bum a cigarette, and nobody could take eyes off him. As for the book, apparently there's more stuff added in later editions, but the first edition was just Neal mouthing off as only Neal could do. It's a document, not a book, a sample of his jazz-riffing style of speech. And that's cool enough.
January 4, 2011
I learned from this that bitches ain't shit but tricks and hoes. I also learned that being Neal Cassady kinda sucked mainly cause you were broke all the time and your older brother made you fight mexican kids to "get tough". Although in the case of Neal you go on to be the inspiration of an entire generation simply by being crazy and fucking everything that moves. What a life!
November 16, 2021
I'm rating this as a collection of historical documents more than as a fully formed work. Though I guess it's appropriate that all we get of Cassady is glimpses since that's all anyone got in life. The "First Third " itself as a tale of a child living on the street is harrowing and a sobering reminder of what the life of the poor in America is really like.
November 28, 2023
Neal Cassady is the true hero of On the Road. Without Neal, there would be no On the Road. Without Neal, there would be no Jack Kerouac. In fact, Jack wrote On the Road trying to imitate Neal's writing style in the infamous Joan Anderson Letter.
November 30, 2009
For some reason, Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac remind me of Hemmingway and Fitzgerald. But with more drinking, drugs (?), and with sharing women.
August 21, 2017
A useful addition to the Beat Literature canon. A bit of a bundle of loose collections, but a unique insight to a unique doomed human.
March 1, 2019
A fun lighthearted read. Neal is dean Moriarty from on the road. This collection of stories is wild and adventurous
December 18, 2023
Nesta que foi sua única obra "inteira" publicada - em 1971, três anos após sua morte - o famigerado Neal Cassady se propõe a narrar o que seria o "primeiro terço" de sua vida. Em realidade, não chega a tanto, uma vez que o livro começa em um interessante - embora extenso - prólogo narrando as origens da família de Cassady, desde seus ascendentes de sangue irlandês, até efetivamente chegar à infância do próprio Neal, contando, em especial, sua trajetória entre os cinco e os nove anos de idade.
Relatando a infância miserável - no sentido financeiro - de uma criança sendo criada por um pai vagabundo e alcóolatra que, apesar de tudo, nutre um amor inocente e protetor pelo filho, este romance autobiográfico é um retrato nu e cru da Grande Depressão que varreu os Estados Unidos nos anos 30.
Do convívio com o círculo de amigos vagabundos e bêbados do pai nas ruas de Denver, no Colorado, passando pelas viagens pela América clandestinamente escondido em trens de carga, até chegar às primeiras experiências de cunho sexual - com homens e mulheres -, os relatos desse pequeno período da vida de Cassady não deixam de fornecer pistas que revelam a formação do caráter daquele que viria a se tornar o inspirador do lendário Dean Moriarty, de "On the Road".
Um livro impressionante e imprescindível para aqueles que curtem a Geração Beat.
Relatando a infância miserável - no sentido financeiro - de uma criança sendo criada por um pai vagabundo e alcóolatra que, apesar de tudo, nutre um amor inocente e protetor pelo filho, este romance autobiográfico é um retrato nu e cru da Grande Depressão que varreu os Estados Unidos nos anos 30.
Do convívio com o círculo de amigos vagabundos e bêbados do pai nas ruas de Denver, no Colorado, passando pelas viagens pela América clandestinamente escondido em trens de carga, até chegar às primeiras experiências de cunho sexual - com homens e mulheres -, os relatos desse pequeno período da vida de Cassady não deixam de fornecer pistas que revelam a formação do caráter daquele que viria a se tornar o inspirador do lendário Dean Moriarty, de "On the Road".
Um livro impressionante e imprescindível para aqueles que curtem a Geração Beat.
October 30, 2023
I read this because I read anything I can lay my hands on re the Beat Generation. It started after reading On the Road, reading biographies and autobiographies of Kerouac and the people in his life, then the Beat Generation generally. Neal Cassady is the real person that Moriarty is based on and his name cropped up regularly in books about Kerouac and those around him but for some reason I had never sought out information on Cassady himself, though I did look at Images in google. This is a very honest autobiographical work. It is by no means literary but it is pure Cassady on paper - just as I would have imagined him to be had I had an imagination big enough. I really liked it because it filled a huge hole in the picture I already have of that group of people. In it you can see what he had that fuelled On the Road, and possibly, probably, all those people as he injected something I don't think they had til they saw him and saw how out there he was (result of a childhood that could so easily have gone somewhere else really destructive), and it blew their worlds more open than might otherwise have happened given the safe and privileged lives (apart from Bukowski) from which they all had emerged.
December 5, 2022
Una mia videorecensione qui: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztdek...
Pur essendo una figura centrale della Beat Generation e un eroe per l'immaginario di diversi scrittori, Kerouac in primis, Cassady scrisse molto meno dei suoi amici, lui che aveva già trasformato la sua vita in una avventurosa opera d'arte. L'unica fatica letteraria che Cassady ci lasciò (togliendo le sue celebri e lunghissime lettere) è questo abbozzo di romanzo incompleto che racconta la sua infanzia e parte della sua giovinezza. Figlio di un hobo alcolizzato che fu costretto a girovagare senza tetto per gli Stati Uniti in piena Depressione, già in tenerissima età Cassady conosce la strada, sa cosa significa prendere al volo treni merci, dormire ai bordi delle strade e in case fatiscenti e come rapportarsi con un'umanità disperata e ai margini. Affascinante come e forse più di molte altre opere del celebre gruppo, il libro di Cassady è scritto in una maniera grezzissima, concitata, come la trascrizione di un ubriaco logorroico che hai colto in un momento di buonumore, assolutamente privo di stile letterario, ma sia ben chiaro: lo dico in maniera positiva, l'opera di Cassady è Outsider Art all'ennesima potenza, senza influenze pregresse dirette né esperienze nel campo, come il sogno di Keith Haring quando nei suoi diari scriveva di desiderare di addormentarsi e al risveglio ricominciare a fare arte essendosi dimenticato tutto ciò che aveva imparato per arrivare alla purezza dello slancio artistico più incontaminato e immacolato. Un grande libro che meriterebbe una ristampa.
Pur essendo una figura centrale della Beat Generation e un eroe per l'immaginario di diversi scrittori, Kerouac in primis, Cassady scrisse molto meno dei suoi amici, lui che aveva già trasformato la sua vita in una avventurosa opera d'arte. L'unica fatica letteraria che Cassady ci lasciò (togliendo le sue celebri e lunghissime lettere) è questo abbozzo di romanzo incompleto che racconta la sua infanzia e parte della sua giovinezza. Figlio di un hobo alcolizzato che fu costretto a girovagare senza tetto per gli Stati Uniti in piena Depressione, già in tenerissima età Cassady conosce la strada, sa cosa significa prendere al volo treni merci, dormire ai bordi delle strade e in case fatiscenti e come rapportarsi con un'umanità disperata e ai margini. Affascinante come e forse più di molte altre opere del celebre gruppo, il libro di Cassady è scritto in una maniera grezzissima, concitata, come la trascrizione di un ubriaco logorroico che hai colto in un momento di buonumore, assolutamente privo di stile letterario, ma sia ben chiaro: lo dico in maniera positiva, l'opera di Cassady è Outsider Art all'ennesima potenza, senza influenze pregresse dirette né esperienze nel campo, come il sogno di Keith Haring quando nei suoi diari scriveva di desiderare di addormentarsi e al risveglio ricominciare a fare arte essendosi dimenticato tutto ciò che aveva imparato per arrivare alla purezza dello slancio artistico più incontaminato e immacolato. Un grande libro che meriterebbe una ristampa.
September 19, 2024
Neal C is a person/character that I've known about since my early adolescence. My first encounters are the classic ones, On the Road and Electric Kool Aid.... . I'm a huge Kerouac fan and have read countless versions of Neal's life with and without Jack over the years.
I remember a very strange conversation with a couple of other counter culture types about how Neal was the real deal and Jack was just ripping of his greatness. Also a book about Neal mostly from his later days with the Pranksters (my memory of the book is that the sections were broken up with images of Neal's famous hammer).
So, I finally got around to reading The First Third.
Jack didn't steal from anybody. Neal was not a great writer, while he was definitely a huge figure of a person, an inspiration and a muse and many other things, he was not a writer.
The stories are real, raw at times and interesting, but only as a sidenote to the great novels that he is a part of.
A fast read, bitty and odd.
I remember a very strange conversation with a couple of other counter culture types about how Neal was the real deal and Jack was just ripping of his greatness. Also a book about Neal mostly from his later days with the Pranksters (my memory of the book is that the sections were broken up with images of Neal's famous hammer).
So, I finally got around to reading The First Third.
Jack didn't steal from anybody. Neal was not a great writer, while he was definitely a huge figure of a person, an inspiration and a muse and many other things, he was not a writer.
The stories are real, raw at times and interesting, but only as a sidenote to the great novels that he is a part of.
A fast read, bitty and odd.
January 11, 2023
Héroe por excelencia de los libros de Kerouac, chofer del bus psicodélico de los Alegres Pillastres de Kesey, Neal Cassady es una leyenda de la contracultura americana, el espíritu rebelde por excelencia, motor desbocado que no paró de girar desde los beats hasta los hippies.
Ante tal escenario, la lectura de este libro se me hacía gloria, leer de su propia mano las historias sin freno, crearon unas expectativas enormes a la hora de empezar su lectura. Pero, lástima que no se cumplieron. Sólo encontré una prosa simple con algunos datos biográficos interesantes, pero nada más. Un resultado más anodino que satisfactorio, solo para fans irreductibles de la generación beat (entre los que me considero).
Claramente es mejor el personaje que el autor. Por suerte me queda por leer de sus aventuras en "Visiones de Cody", escrita por su compañero Jack, donde la calidad estaría asegurada.
Ante tal escenario, la lectura de este libro se me hacía gloria, leer de su propia mano las historias sin freno, crearon unas expectativas enormes a la hora de empezar su lectura. Pero, lástima que no se cumplieron. Sólo encontré una prosa simple con algunos datos biográficos interesantes, pero nada más. Un resultado más anodino que satisfactorio, solo para fans irreductibles de la generación beat (entre los que me considero).
Claramente es mejor el personaje que el autor. Por suerte me queda por leer de sus aventuras en "Visiones de Cody", escrita por su compañero Jack, donde la calidad estaría asegurada.
July 5, 2024
I reread this after many years. I think few people would be even remotely interested unless they were interested in Jack Kerouac, who helped bring Neal to life (on paper) in On the Road. It's almost as if you need Kerouac's account first to help you understand what Cassady is even getting at because his writing is so fragmented.
Regardless, his early life is both fascinating and truly horrifying. It is amazing he didn't spend his life in jail or die even earlier. You can sense the high level of intelligence (because he was clearly really smart) and insight, yet he is completely amoral. That's not surprising given his uprising in the slums of 1930s Denver. It is a slice of life that claws away at the saccharine stuff about "The Greatest Generation."
Regardless, his early life is both fascinating and truly horrifying. It is amazing he didn't spend his life in jail or die even earlier. You can sense the high level of intelligence (because he was clearly really smart) and insight, yet he is completely amoral. That's not surprising given his uprising in the slums of 1930s Denver. It is a slice of life that claws away at the saccharine stuff about "The Greatest Generation."
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