On the Road: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Description: The indisputable bible of the Beat Generation, "On the Road" (1957) fictionalizes Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend, Neal Cassidy.

Review Quotes: "An authentic work of art . . . the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as 'beat, ' and whose principal avatar he is." --Gilbert Millstein, The New York Times

"On the Road has the kind of drive that blasts through to a large public. . . . What makes the novel really important, what gives it that drive is a genuine new, engaging and exciting prose style. . . . What keeps the book going is the power and beauty of the writing." --Kenneth Rexroth, San Francisco Chronicle

"A highly euphoric and intensely readable story about a group of wandering young hedonists who cross the country in endless search of kicks." --Leonard Feather, Downbeat

"On the Road is perhaps the supreme American romance . . . a mystical and poignant reminder of lost youth, and those sublime years when everyone feels immortal." --The Guardian, "The 100 Best Novels"

"[On the Road] changed my life like it changed everyone else's . . . It speeds by like a freight train . . . You grabbed ahold of the train, hopped on and went along with him, hanging on for dear life." --Bob Dylan

"Kerouac turned up the temperature in American letters, and it's never gone down since." --John Updike

"[On the Road] showed me that you could do things that weren't sypposed to be done. Suddenly, I realized I wasn't the only one to think I was a nut because I had strange thoughts. Finally, here was somebody telling the truth." --David Bowie

"If [Kerouac] hadn't written On the Road, The Doors would have never existed . . . that sense of freedom, spirituality, and intellectuality--that's what I wanted in my own work." --Ray Manzarek

"My teenage years were soaked in Kerouac. I wanted to go on a road trip with Neal Cassady. The expanse of the American West became implanted in my imagination." --Colum McCann

"On the Road, The Dharma Bums . . . That was my starting point, the Beats putting poetry--spoken word--and jazz together." --Van Morrison