Big Sur

By Jack Kerouac

Driven mad by three years of endless telegrams, phone calls, mail, and reporters in the wake of the success of On the Road, Jack Kerouac needed peace, quiet, sobriety, and solitude, so he withdrew to a cabin in Big Sur on the Californian coast. Amid the wild beauty of the landscape, Kerouac struggled to come to terms with his own myth and its malign impact on his life. The result is Big Sur, a moving, gritty, and uninhibited autobiographical account of a man struggling with inner demons, blessed by talent and cursed with an urge towards self-destruction—a path lined with bourbon, Manhattans, and scotch. Searingly honest and raw, Big Sur shows a man coming to terms with fame, himself, and the world.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jan 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9780735254251

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) es el novelista más destacado y emblemático de la Generación Beat. En Anagrama se han publicado sus obras fundamentales: En el camino, Los subterráneos, Los Vagabundos del Dharma, La vanidad de los Duluoz y En la carretera. El rollo mecanografiado original, además de Cartas, la selección de su correspondencia con Allen Ginsberg, y, con William S. Burroughs, Y los hipopótamos se cocieron en sus tanques.

Reviews for Big Sur

[wilsonknut · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is Kerouac's darkest book. It is 196,0 and he is sick from drinking too much. The notoriety of On the Road is starting to get to him. He tries to dry out and get back to the basics in Ferlinghetti's cabin in the woods of Big Sur, but he just can't resist the bottle and the social scene that goes with it. He captures his nervous breakdown in this book, but it is an omen of what will become of the last few years of his life.

[kcshankd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Drunk, strung out, and famous. Haunting when you know the end is near, six or so years in the future, puking up his liver in his mom's bathroom. Hard for a parent to read for various reasons I won't go into but will be immediately apparent if you've read the book. Goddamit Jack.

[danielstj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An amazing journey of self-discovery amidst the backdrop of California. Kerouac embarks on a wild romp through his own mind, his philosophies, hallucinations, drunkenness, and everything else while incorporating intimate passages about his life, and his understanding, of the world around him. This is another revealing painting of the artist and is peppered by fine prose (and even a poem at the finish.)4 stars!

[gkyoungen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Poor Jack. Reading this book was like watching a train wreck. Seeing the alcoholism overtake his sanity toward the end was a difficult read, but I couldn't put it down. Having only read On the Road, and The Dharma Bums, this is probably the last Kerouac book I'll read. It puts his whole life in context.