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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>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.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p><b>The legendary novel of freedom and the search for authenticity that defined a generation, now in a striking new Pengiun Classics Deluxe Edition <br></b><br>Inspired by Jack Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, <i>On the Road</i> tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naiveté and wild ambition and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, <i>On the Road</i> is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope, a book that changed American literature and changed anyone who has ever picked it up. <b> </b></p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>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. --<b>Gilbert Millstein, <i>The New York Times <br></i></b><br><i>On the Road</i> 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. --<b>Kenneth Rexroth, <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i></b> <p/>A highly euphoric and intensely readable story about a group of wandering young hedonists who cross the country in endless search of kicks. --<b>Leonard Feather, <i>Downbeat </i></b><br><p><i>On the Road </i>is perhaps the supreme American romance . . . a mystical and poignant reminder of lost youth, and those sublime years when everyone feels immortal. <b>--The Guardian, The 100 Best Novels<br></b><br>[<i>On the Road</i>] 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. <b>--Bob Dylan</b> <p/>Kerouac turned up the temperature in American letters, and it's never gone down since. <b>--John Updike</b> <p/>[<i>On the Road</i>] 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. <b>--David Bowie</b> <p/>If [Kerouac] hadn't written <i>On the Road</i>, The Doors would have never existed . . . that sense of freedom, spirituality, and intellectuality--that's what I wanted in my own work. <b>--Ray Manzarek</b> <p/>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. <b>--Colum McCann</b> <p/><i>On the Road</i>, <i>The Dharma Bums </i>. . . That was my starting point, the Beats putting poetry--spoken word--and jazz together. <b>--Van Morrison</b></p><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Jack Kerouac(1922-1969), the central figure of the Beat Generation, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. Among his many novels are <b>On the Road</b>, <b>The Dharma Bums</b>, <b>Big Sur</b>, and <b>Visions of Cody</b>.

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