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Kerouac and Friends: A Beat Generation Album
Renowned photographer Fred McDarrah captures the Beats in the midst of their rise to acclaim. His 100 shots of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and others partying in cheap downtown Manhattan apartments, socializing at Grove Press book parties, and hunching over their typewriters are joined by writings from a diverse and illuminating raft of sources. Jack Kerouac contributes a list of activities necessary for writing success ("1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy"), Diana Trilling shares her thoughts on her fears of and for husband's former student, Allen Ginsberg, and Mad magazine sends up the young men and women who took up the beat lifestyle Kerouac and friends made famous.
Kerouac and Friends is a fresh and surprising look at the young men and women who would come to define the last major epoch in American literature.
"A lot of great stuff here about those Abominable Snowmen of modern poetry, the Beats."
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti
"Not merely a marvelous nostalgia trip. It also illuminates an important period in American culture. First rate!"
—Michael Harrington
Kerouac and Friends is a fresh and surprising look at the young men and women who would come to define the last major epoch in American literature.
"A lot of great stuff here about those Abominable Snowmen of modern poetry, the Beats."
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti
"Not merely a marvelous nostalgia trip. It also illuminates an important period in American culture. First rate!"
—Michael Harrington
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 26, 2016
The Beatnik movement of the 1950s and (very) early 1960s was a transient affair with a relatively small dramatis personae: First of all, there was Jack Kerouac, whose On the Road started the ball rolling. Then there was Allen Ginsberg, probably the most lasting talent of the bunch. And then there were a whole bunch of spear carriers like John Clellon Holmes, Peter Ostrovsky, Gregory Corso, and others.
What killed the Beats was, I believe, the media. They agonized so publicly about the whole phenomenon that they attracted hordes of tourists, pseudo-hipsters, and media hacks. Fred W. McDarrah has done a fair job of photographing the night-loving Beatniks in their seedy haunts and collecting pro- and con- journalism of varying quality that marked the meteoric rise and fall of the Beats. I the final death knell was Maynard G. Krebs, a character on “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” who was always going so see a film called The Monster That Devoured Cleveland.
Kerouac and Friends: A Beat Generation Album provides a useful chart of the movement's rise and fall. Too bad the Beats were such nighthawks, because the photos in the book suffer from mediocre flash photography. Still, it was fun to read.
What killed the Beats was, I believe, the media. They agonized so publicly about the whole phenomenon that they attracted hordes of tourists, pseudo-hipsters, and media hacks. Fred W. McDarrah has done a fair job of photographing the night-loving Beatniks in their seedy haunts and collecting pro- and con- journalism of varying quality that marked the meteoric rise and fall of the Beats. I the final death knell was Maynard G. Krebs, a character on “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” who was always going so see a film called The Monster That Devoured Cleveland.
Kerouac and Friends: A Beat Generation Album provides a useful chart of the movement's rise and fall. Too bad the Beats were such nighthawks, because the photos in the book suffer from mediocre flash photography. Still, it was fun to read.
December 17, 2011
B+ This book is a must for any hardcore beat fan but a few things - a very heavy male focus. I know the Beats were misogynistic but there would be photos and the authors wouldn't even mention there was a woman in the photos in their caption. A complete lack of the presence women had in the Beat generation. Heavy focus on Ted Joans (who was rad but there were others they didn't spend as much time on). Some really irritating anti-beat essays at the end (which are impt to read, but still, argh). Good stuff in here, really.
May 2, 2014
"When the private lives of the beats were exposed, the public was outraged. Fearing these wild beasts had been turned loose to undermine and destroy the public morals, the media, especially Time and Life magazines, developed an unprecedented blitz against the beat generation, each week alerting the public to the menace.
Although very tame, this is one typical example of Time in one issue: 'The bearded, sandaled beat likes to be with his own kind, to riffle through his quarterlies, write craggy poetry, paint crusty pictures his never ending quest for the ultimate in sex and protest. When deterred from such pleasures by the goggle-eyed from Squaresville, the Beaknik packs his pot (marijuana), shorts and bongo drums, grabs his blackhosed pony-tailed beatchick and cuts out.'
The public believed that a Beatnik was anybody who looked scruffy, carried a sheaf of rumpled papers, and read a kooky poem that included a few four-letter words. The public believed that beats slept on floors on dirty mattresses and were no different from Bowery bums." p.xiii
An excerpt from Fred W. McDarrah's preface.
Although very tame, this is one typical example of Time in one issue: 'The bearded, sandaled beat likes to be with his own kind, to riffle through his quarterlies, write craggy poetry, paint crusty pictures his never ending quest for the ultimate in sex and protest. When deterred from such pleasures by the goggle-eyed from Squaresville, the Beaknik packs his pot (marijuana), shorts and bongo drums, grabs his blackhosed pony-tailed beatchick and cuts out.'
The public believed that a Beatnik was anybody who looked scruffy, carried a sheaf of rumpled papers, and read a kooky poem that included a few four-letter words. The public believed that beats slept on floors on dirty mattresses and were no different from Bowery bums." p.xiii
An excerpt from Fred W. McDarrah's preface.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews