The birth of the beat generation : visionaries, rebels, and hipsters, 1944-1960 /

Watson's no-holds-barred chronicle of Beat writers is part of the Circles of the Twentieth Century series, which is based on the belief that artistic innovation arises out of "constellations" of creative people. The theory is particularly appropriate when it comes to the close, even intimate friendships among the primary figures of the Beat movement: William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg, and their icon and love object, the rapacious Neal Cassady. Watson juggles the life stories of each of these driven fellows in his fluid commentary, which is well supported by photographs, quotes, and sidebars. We learn the pertinent facts about each man's childhood and the winding paths that lead to their fertile, if turbulent relationships, which were based on a shared passion for experimentation with drugs, sexuality, and spontaneous literary expression. Watson covers all their wild adventures, documents the feverish creation of such galvanizing and influential works as On the Road, "Howl," and Naked Lunch, and describes the widening of the Beat circle to include such luminaries as Gary Snyder and Michael McClure. The Beats' fusion of life, legend, and literature was gutsy, unique, and indelible, and recognition of their importance continues to grow. --Donna Seaman

In the second volume in the series "Circles of the Twentieth Century," devoted to avant-garde writers, Watson (The Harlem Renaissance, Pantheon, 1995) traces the lives of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and company from their initial meetings in New York to their rise to literary fame. Watson also examines confluent movements like the San Francisco renaissance and the Black Mountain School. Watson offers no startling revelations, but he writes gracefully and has a gift for synthesis. An innovative book design makes interesting use of the margins for quotations, photos, and brief notes. This lively companion to John Tytell's Naked Angels (LJ 4/15/76) belongs in most literature collections.‘William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A highly entertaining group biography of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and company that skimps on literary criticism but plumbs the Beats' dramatic lives with not-quite-prurient gusto. Anyone interested in the Beat writers will probably have encountered nearly all of the information here before; Kerouac alone seems to have inspired as many biographies as Abraham Lincoln. But by giving equal time to the three central Beats, Watson (The Harlem Renaissance, not reviewed, etc.) astutely emphasizes the interplay between their separate inspirations and the importance they attached to several ancillary figures, especially Columbia student and murderer Lucien Carr, unschooled car thief Neal Cassady, and Benzedrine addict Joan Vollmer, who married the primarily homosexual Burroughs. Kerouac's fictional portrayal of Cassady in On the Road helped to create a popular image of ``beatniks'' (in columnist Herb Caen's flip 1957 coinage) as foolish, speed-crazed menaces to the American way, but Watson shows that the Beats were bonded by enormous intellectual curiosity as well as the voracious pursuit of sex, drugs, and mystical visions. Of course, the towering disarray of Beat lives drives this rollicking saga more than the inherent qualities of Beat literature. Burroughs's heroin addiction, his South American quests for the legendary hallucinogen yage, and the botched William Tell stunt that killed his wife; Kerouac's speed-fueled writing binges and later alcoholic descent; Cassady's underworld upbringing, incessant marital infidelities, and last hurrah as the acid- dropping driver for Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters; Ginsberg's incarceration in a mental hospital and his sexual exploits with Burroughs, Kerouac, and, most sustainedly, Cassady: The brow- lifting anecdotes maintain their perverse allure. On a more critically rigorous note, Watson provides an expert map to the links between the Beats and the poets of the '50s San Francisco Renaissance. For a spirited introduction to the midcentury American literary avant-garde, curious readers could do far worse than to start here. (photos, not seen) (Author tour)