Go

by John Clellon Holmes and Clellon Holmes

Book Overview

The novel that launched the Beat Generation's literary legacy describes the world of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Neil Cassady.

Drafted two months before Jack Kerouac began On The Road, Go is the first and most accurate chronicle of the private lives lived by the Beats before they became public figures. In honest, lucid fictional prose designed to capture the events, emotions, and essence of his experience among the Beats, Holmes describes an individualistic post-World War II New York where crime is celebrated, writing is revered, and parties, booze, discussions, drugs, and sex punctuate life.

The most tentative and conservative of the Beats, Holmes's intelligent and sensitive voice also details the pressures and regrets that his lifestyle gave birth to. With portraits of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neil Cassady, William Burroughs, this first novel about the Beat Generation gives us a peek into what it meant to be a Beat before the term had ever been used.

"... still one of the best novels about the Beat Generation . . . brilliant and important." -- Los Angeles Free Press

"I want to write to you about ... your book. You did the honest thing, the big thing, the good thing." -- Jack Kerouac

"Go signaled the start of something new in American literature. A generation with a new consciousness had found its voice . . . " -- Ann Charters

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560254246
• ISBN13: 9781560254249
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Da Capo
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Early Beat Chronicles

The author has been generally ignored as to his place in the formative years of Beat-O-Roma, and this book becomes a good background check on his impressive"credentials". He certainly can't write with that jazz laced pen which Keroauc used to set the toneof beat writings, but his story really sheds a lot of light upon the struggles which this anarcisticmovement bestowed upon its followers.All in all, if you like beat culture you will probabley find this to be an enjoyable read.

No better chronicle of daily BEAT life

as the above says, I have not encountered a novel that offered a better look into the daily lives of the beats from a "sort of" outsiders point of view.

This book is one of the best I have ever rea

I think that when it comes to the beat generation there is no other book to cronicle it. GO really gives you the base charactarization that can allow you to understand even further the other beat generation works. Especially allen ginsberg, and jack kerouac.

Must read Beat Generation history

First novel, based on actual events, to actually open the window shades on the Beats. Ginsburg, Kerouac, they're all in here. Feel what it was like living in New York in the early 50's with all the hip-cats. Go, man, go

Excellent early-Beat background around Columbia University.

If you love the Beat writers, this early novel (published in '52) will please you. It portrays Beat development in late '40s Manhattan. The main characters are Ginsberg, Kerouac and Holmes before they were famous