Beat Generation

This is Jack Kerouac's great lost work, a play written in 1957, the same year that On the Road was first published. Beat Generation is about tension, about friendship, and about karma – what it is and how you get it. It begins in New York's Bowery, with wine in the morning, and ends with questions of the form of the world. From money and the need for it, to religion and the karma of Christ, to the mysteries and wisdom of life reflected in horseracing, Kerouac touches on the essentials of Beat mentality, the rejection of middle class values and the expansion of consciousness.With the same biting wit and honest as Kerouac's novels, Beat Generation portrays an authentic and alternate 1950s America. Kerouac's characters are working-class men—a step away from vagrants, but not a big step. His dialogue suggests spontaneous jazz riffs in its rhythm and restless philosophy in its content. Here is the genuine heart and soul of the zeitgeist that blossomed into the counter-culture of 1960s America and lives in restless spirits today.