Angelheaded Hipster : Life of Jack Kerouac

This study of the cult literary figure, Jack Kerouac gives an insight into the writer's frustrations and the critical hostility his work received. "On the Road" epitomized the freewheeling, rebellious nature of the Woodstock generation and Kerouac was heralded as the daddy of the "Beats".

Yet, at the time of his death he was drunk, broke and living with his mother. Despite the novel's cult status, Kerouac suffered from a growing weariness with the publishers' rejections, and felt frustrated by the critical hostility which greeted its eventual publication.

His optimism for the freedom of a bohemian lifestyle was gradually displaced.

Finally it evaporated in the realization of the Buddhist truth that all life is suffering. Interest in his work and life continues. The $91 dollars he left to his mother at his death has metamorphised into an estate worth $10 million which has provoked a fierce custody debate.

The fight, between his only daughter and his wife's relatives, includes the rights to some unpublished material, which Kerouac scholars have deemed priceless. This biography offers an account of a man whose iconic status remains undiminished.

The author has also written "Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now" and "Conversations with Eric Clapton".