Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, The Beat Generation, And America

This book is a biography of Jack Kerouac and describes his life and times in great, very great, detail. The scholarship here is meticulous and because this is a topic dear to me I did not mind; but for those with interest you might find yourself skipping parts.Kerouac is one of those writers, like Merman Melville, who will fair better in the future than he did in his own time. Kerouac was dismissed by much of the literary establishment during his life and, in my opinion, unfairly. His 'stream of conscious' writing really wasn't that at all. Kerouac would, indeed, pound out the final product quickly but as Mr. McNally points out that is only after years of reflection and tentative efforts.This book is also about the years of the so-called 'Beat Generation' and follows some of Kerouac's associates and fellow-travelers. So it is a good description of a time in US history that was complex and produced some amazing work.Even though I was very interested in the subject, the detail got to me at times. I skipped some parts of the book as they became, to my mind, repetitive; I got lost in all the moves back and forth from Florida to New York and such and I'm not sure all the day to day detail added much anyway.If you have any interest in the literature of this period or the people; then this is a very fine book indeed.As a note I really wish people who want to complain about the price of Kindle editions would do so on forums Amazon has for that purpose instead of posting irrelevant 'reviews.' A complaint about price is not a review and it lowers the rating for the book and does nothing about the price issue.

This book was recommended to me by someone who knew Jack Kerouac. He said this book was one of the best biographies out there about Jack. Not only did I get to know Jack by reading Desolate Angel but I rubbed shoulders with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Alan Ginsberg, Memere/Gabrielle, Neal Cassady, etc. This is not just an isolated look at one person but at his entire milieu, his genre, his clan. Dennis McNally does an incredible job of telling this story from start to finish, immersing the reader in his compelling story-telling, and he does us the valuable service of being an informed storyteller, researching the book impeccably, even providing us with the proof of his efforts. While Jack may have been a bit hard to love - what with all his drinking, snorting, chest-beating, soapbox standing - I at least came away with an understanding of how the people around him may have contributed to his demise, as much as he did himself. Read, read, read this book.

Excellent book

I've read about 12 biographies of Kerouac and was surprised by how good this one was . It' centers on the big picture of what Kerouac did in the world ,and in the world of literature with his art . Jack described himself as a "poet " for instance , not a novelist. This book shows how Jack always knew what he was doing and how different some critics wrongly interpreted his work. To this day Kerouac is selling very well and people value what he has done .

yes I would recommend this book why not it's jacks story ,why did he let his mother Controll him what about his daughter, any will sad in a way that he ended up ,was he ever happy didn't like his mother loved his friends and jack needed love not the bottle

Dennis McNally is a very good biographer. He paints Kerouac in the colors of the honesty and despair that plagued his short, sorrowful life. Reading this, I felt like it was forever overcast, drizzly, and cold wherever Jack showed up.

I love the writings of Jack Kerouac. This book was very well written and gave me a very good overview of the time and the other writers and their relationships.

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