Originally published in 1965, this autobiographical novel covers a key year in Jack Kerouac's life-the period that led up to the publication of On the Road in September of 1957.After spending two months in the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington, Kerouac's fictional self Jack Duluoz comes down from the isolated mountains to the wild excitement of the bars, jazz clubs, and parties of San Francisco, before traveling on to Mexico City, New York, Tangiers, Paris, and London.Duluoz attempts to extricate himself from the world but fails, for one must "live, travel, adventure, bless, and don't be sorry." Desolation Angels is quintessential Kerouac.
"One of the most true, comic, and grizzly journeys in American literature."
"If the Pulitzer Prize were given for the book that is most representative of American life, I would nominate Desolation Angels."
"Desolation Angels explains perhaps even better than the other Kerouac novels what the place of religion may have been in the Beat mystique."
