Author:Barry Miles
The Beats. a title that Jack Kerouac coined to define the exhausted exaltation of a generation, produced a body of works infected with a new energy. Their spontaneous, often-unedited style epitomised their own era and their famed close-knit literary community continues to inspire writers today.
Barry Miles, friend and biographerof Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, was there , part of the Beat Vibe. here he gathers together some of the most influential as well as the most overlooked writers of the era. He covers the writings from The Original Beats (New York 1944-53): The San Francisco Scene (1954-57) and The Second Wave (New York 1958-60) including works from Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Frank O'Hara, Diane di Prima and Alexander Trocchi to the king of the Beats Himself, Jack Kerouac.
The result is a fascinating compendium that recaptures the unique but varied voices of the Beat generation..
Miles ...was right in the groovy swim from the start. He was Mr Alternative before the Beatles of the Rolling Stones got going ... Miles was the one they all liked, confided in and trusted with their lives (at least their published ones).
—— Independent[Miles's] mastery of Beat Generation know-how must surely be unrivalled.
—— Sunday TelegraphA heady reminder of why we got hooked in the first place
—— Daily TelegraphGenuine objective journalism not only gets the facts right, it gets the meaning of events right. It is compelling not only today, but stands the test of time. It is validated not only by 'reliable sources' but by the unfolding of history. It is journalism that ten, twenty, fifty years after the fact still holds up a true and intelligent mirror to events
—— T.D. Allman(Ligotti uses) restrained, lyrical prose and subtly disturbing images that Poe himself might well have admired
—— USA TodayOrwell saw … that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power
—— Adam Gopnik , New Yorker[Orwell fought] the evils of the world and the weakness of his body to the day of his death, always striving, striving to tell the truth about what he saw and what he felt
—— Nicholas Walter , Anarchy: A Journal of Anarchist Ideas