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Reviews, Interview, and Book Talk

Desolation Kerouac: Wrestling with Demons in ‘Desolation Peak’
Jack Kerouac’s posthumous Desolation Peak establishes that Kerouac was more than a road warrior out for kicks. Or some wayward beatnik.
In Desolation Peak, we witness Kerouac in the throes of his “long night of life”… It is a journey, not “on the road” to the American West, but of the road toward inner peace… edited by Kerouac scholar, Charles Shuttleworth, [it] is about this journey. It is a deep dive into the first of multiple forthcoming publications from the Jack Kerouac archive…
READ MORE at PopMatters

Desolation Peak by Jack Kerouac
Beat Scene review by Ann Charters
Hats off in gratitude to Charles Shuttleworth, for his devotion and skill as the editor of this extraordinary…
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Correspondence #21: Charles Shuttleworth
The editor of a recent title covering Kerouac’s 1956 experiences on Desolation Peak responds to an examination by poet Jim Cohn of his claims that the author might have been suffering from bipolarity
READ MORE at Rock and the Beat Generation

Book review #13: Desolation Peak
Rock of a more literal kind concerns us here: the mountainous outcrop on which Kerouac endured an eight-week stay in the magnificent yet far from hospitable north western altitudes of the US
READ MORE at Rock and the Beat Generation