Collected Letters, 1944-1967 by Neal Cassady
Neal Cassady is best remembered today as Jack Kerouac's muse and the basis for the character Dean Moriarty in Kerouac's classic On The Road, and as one of Ken Kesey's merriest of Merry Pranksters, the driver of the psychedelic bus Further, immortalized in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. This collection brings together more than two hundred letters to Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, John Clellon Holmes, and other Beat generation luminaries, as well as correspondence between Neal and his wife, Carolyn. These amazing letters cover Cassady's life between the ages of 18 and 41 and finish just months before his death in February 1968. Brilliantly edited by Dave Moore, this unique collection presents the Soul of the Beat Generation in his own words-sometimes touching and tender, sometimes bawdy and hilarious. Here is the real Neal Cassady-raw and uncut.