This book is a biography, not only of the author during the period of his life leading up to his writing and publishing of ON THE ROAD, but also of the book itself. From the beginning of Kerouac''s travels (intellectually, and later, physically and emotionally) to the end of his process, this book chronicles his artistic struggles, his emotinal growth and transformation, and his spiritual odyssey, as well as that of several of his friends, including Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. It describes these struggles and the incidents that are their symptoms and/or genesis, in an unemotional and fairly nonjudgmental way. This book is as much a chronicle in time of America''s cultural experience in the postwar "beat" period, as it is a biographical sketch of one of America''s greatest authors.
This is a very encouraging and inspiring book to read if you are an aspiring writer. From chaos and inchoate sensitivity, writer''s block to penniless (and typerwriterless) wandering of the streets and byways of America, his obstacles are enormous; yet in the end he creatd some of the greatest experiences of the human soul and life arising in mid-twentieth century America.