Jack Kerouac is best known through the image he put forth in his autobiographica
l novels. Yet it is only his private journals, in which he set down the raw mate
rial of his life and thinking, that reveal to us the real Kerouac. In Windblown
World, distinguished Americanist Douglas Brinkley has gathered a selection of jo
urnal entries from the most pivotal period of Kerouac's life, 1947 to 1954. Here
is Kerouac as a hungry young writer finishing his first novel while forging cru
cial friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. Tr
uly a self-portrait of the artist as a young man, this unique and indispensable
volume is sure to become an integral element of the Beat oeuvre.
