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  • Published: 25 July 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141972046
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384

Desolation Angels




A soulful and wild tribute to Kerouac's final road trip, new to Penguin Modern Classics

Desolation Angels is the wild and soulful story of the legendary road trip that Jack Kerouac took before the publication of On the Road, told through the persona of Jack Duluoz and accompanied by his thinly-disguised Beat cohorts Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs. As they hitch, hop freight trains, walk and talk their way across the world, from California to Mexico, London to Paris and on to opium-ridden Tangiers, Kerouac chronicles their poetry, partying, mountain vigils and spiritual contemplation with unsurpassable energy and humanity.

  • Published: 25 July 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141972046
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 384

About the author

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1922. In 1947, enthused by bebop, the rebel attitude of his friend Neal Cassidy, and the throng of hobos, drug addicts and hustlers he encountered in New York, he decided to discover America and hitchhhike across the country. His writing was openly autobiographical and he developed a style he referred to as 'spontaneous prose' which he used to record the experiences of the Beat Generation. Among his many novels are On the Road, Maggie Cassidy, The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. He died in 1969.

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Praise for Desolation Angels

Nerve-jangling, sentimental, sincere and funny

Sunday Times

One of the most true, comic and grizzly journeys in American literature

Time