Product Description

Neal Cassady is best remembered today as Jack Kerouac’s muse and the basis for the character "Dean Moriarty" in Kerouac’s classic On The Road, and as one of Ken Kesey’s merriest of Merry Pranksters, the driver of the psychedelic bus "Further," immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. This collection brings together more than two hundred letters to Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, John Clellon Holmes, and other Beat generation luminaries, as well as correspondence between Neal and his wife, Carolyn. These amazing letters cover Cassady’s life between the ages of 18 and 41 and finish just months before his death in February 1968. Brilliantly edited by Dave Moore, this unique collection presents the "Soul of the Beat Generation" in his own words—sometimes touching and tender, sometimes bawdy and hilarious. Here is the real Neal Cassady—raw and uncut.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #303849 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Though he inspired the likes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, Beat icon Cassady never published a single book in his lifetime. A restless and uneven writer, he lacked the discipline of his more determined friends, noting himself in a 1948 letter to Kerouac, "My prose has no individual style as such…perhaps, words are not the way for me." But stylistically sound or not, Cassady’s writing inspired a whole generation of authors, and, as evidenced by the copious letters he penned, his life was marked by artistic conflict and wanderlust. Compiling all of the thrice-married writer’s correspondence into one volume for the first time, British editor Moore adeptly documents Cassady’s rise from teenaged inmate at the Colorado State Reformatory to chauffeur for Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. Unfortunately, few of these letters record Cassady’s most famous adventures, such as the cross-country trip with Kerouac that inspired On the Road. The vast majority of the epistles concern Cassady’s failed love affairs and his inability to both keep a job and financially support his wives. Moore gives much needed historical commentary in places, although his decision to sporadically insert letters to Cassady from his ex-wives breaks up the flow of his subject’s central narrative. Although there are a few literary gems within Cassady’s body of work, such as his free-flowing "Joan Anderson" letter, for the most part, his letters prove that his most enduring legacy is his tremendous influence on his Beat friends.
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From Booklist
Neal Cassady--that happening, hard-living, hard-loving hero of the Beat culture is fully here--in his own words. Cassady was part raw sexuality, part inspiration for Kerouac and Ginsberg, part arrogant con man, and part insecure, indecisive drifter. The only thing we can be sure of is that Cassady possessed some major charisma. Women bore his children and his absences and not only coped with but even approved of his interchangeable partner approach. Men fell in love with him, too, whether sexually or in pure awe. Cassady's letters show this and more, revealing a sometimes manic yet incredibly insightful and electric mind and a man so charged with emotion for life and open to his urges that he seemed unable to settle anywhere (including within his various selves) for very long. Well edited and annotated, this volume is an essential addition to Beat literature that strengthens the notion of Cassady as a major Beat figure and, more important, presents Cassady as a man, not an icon. Janet St. John
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Dave’s work on this collection is simply awesome.... It should become and remain the definitive reference book for Beat scholars forever.” (Carolyn Cassady)

Customer Reviews

A mediocre book about a fascinating character
Jack Kerouac is a great writer, who wrote some great books. Neal Cassady is the energetic, life-filled hero of many of them, including "On the Road," in which Neal is represented as "Dean Moriarty."
Tom Wolfe is another great writer, who wrote the amazing "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," in which Neal is also a prominent character, this time the driver of a psychedelic busful of hippies.
In these books, and in others, Neal Cassady stands out distinctly as a fascinating character worthy of study--a man with an almost bottomless manic energy, the sex drive of a large crowd, and a penchant for joyriding in stolen cars.
This book here, however, goes a little deeper, is a little more personal, and as a result, damages many of the romantic illusions that have been built around his character.
This is Neal's life in his own words, in words from letters meant only for his friends and lovers and family, not for the public. There is some dishonesty here, but still it's very intimate, and very disclosing.
This book shows the sides of Neal that were often downplayed in books about him, sides that would have made him a much less sympathetic character: the neglectful way he treated and cast aside his wives and children, the almost psychopathic detachment from the crimes he committed and the women he used, the anger and the bitterness over his lot in life, the general disloyalty, the pathetically unsuccessful attempts at trying to be a writer, and the transparent tries to make his often empty life seem more significant than it was and his often horrible choices seem less like choices and more like fate.
All that would be fine however, if he had only been a better writer. As it is, the book is still a fairly compelling read that will keep you turning the pages and keep you interested. But the writing is typical. Average. Drug-addled. Bland.
He never had the discpline to cultivate what talent he may have had, and it shows.
This is a book to read to acquaint yourself better with Neal Cassady the character...if you want to. Unfortunately, along the way, you'll have to get a bit involved with Neal Cassady the writer.
He's certainly no Kerouac, even if he did help to inspire his style.

Lost Beat Literature
Neal Cassady is better known as the inspiration for the driver/companion Dean Moriarty in "On the Road", Cody in "Visions of Cody" and the real life driver of the next genration in "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". Other than "The First Third" published by City Lights many years ago there is little actually written by this fascinating personality. These letters are give a good idea of the style of speaking, writing and living (good and bad) that touched so many people and crossed between the generations of the beats and the hippies.

Not always inspired, sometimes pedestrian, Cassady's voice is always compelling. This book is essential reading for fan's of the beats and should be on the bookshelf along with the letters of Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg. Fans of Ken Kesey, Ed McClanahan, Larry McMurtry, Gurney Norman, the Grateful Dead, etc. will appreciate this book as well.

It is sad to read how often Cassady talks of writing a new book when you know that he never really get around to doing it but, in a sense, he lived a life which became a part of many books. In that sense, as an inspiration, a many faceted character he is very much a part of literature and this will add deservingly to this recognition.

Elementary my dear Moriarty.......
>
>
>
Now's your chance.......

Read between the lines of what Jack Kerouac
was saying in On the Road, or at least get closer
to his hero Dean Moriarty (real name Neal Cassady).

This book officially published this winter in the
USA and available on import in the UK is a
CAUSE CELEBRE of the Beat World. Possibly
the best Beat read you'll have had since On the Road.

Neal Cassady's Letters - produced by Carolyn
Cassady and others, brilliantly edited (and that
doesn't mean cut) by Beat authority Dave Moore.

Having read On the Road we think we know it all?
We don't know half of it. Neal's Letters flesh out
the legend. For instance they show the married side
of Neal with intimate letters between himself and
Carolyn, something On the Road barely touches on.
They reveal the extent of the 'manage a trois' which
existed between Neal, Carolyn and Jack.

You want something even spicier? Try the long letter
to Alan Ginsberg starting on p.199 ...or Diana's note
on Neal p.142-143, or Neal's outrageous letter starting
p.327 and you'll see why Neal Cassady joins The
Marquis de Sade, Casanova, and Rasputin as
a sexual enchanter.

Bristolian Dave Moore's meticulous annotation and footnotes
link the letters, explain them, and make a narrative of them.
They prove Neal an engaging writer who's free-form
style inspired Kerouac in his genius to make
a prose-poem of the tale.

It's not difficult to see why Kerouac and his muse have
been down-graded over the years, and even vilified.
There's enough work here for a thousand sociologists.
At a time when, here in Britain, Jamaican men are
being persuaded to change their `out husband' lifestyle
and settle down with their wives and the children they
father, Neal Cassady epitomised the very life style
they're eschewing becoming the `white negro' of
Kerouac's classic, not only in terms of jazz music
and pot, but also adopting the black male role of
sex-object and stud.

No wonder the media wants to play him down - the
man who hitched a train and threw a generation off the rails.

As Joe Strummer said: "When we first read On
the Road we weren't digging Kerouac's prose - we
wanted to be like Dean Moriarty". He ended his life
as only a man like that can - broken and crying on
a railway line in Mexico.

Saint or sinner? Looser or winner? As the man who
straddled 100 women and Kerouac's prose makes
his literary debut - you make up your mind!