As Ever: The Collected Correspondence of Allen Ginsberg & Neal Cassady

by Barry Gifford (Editor), Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady

Book by Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady

234 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1977

About the author

Barry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness.

He is described by Patrick Beach as being "like if John Updike had an evil twin that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and wrote funny..."He is best known for his series of novels about Sailor and Lula, two sex-driven, star-crossed protagonists on the road. The first of the series, Wild at Heart, was adapted by director David Lynch for the 1990 film of the same title. Gifford went on to write the screenplay for Lost Highway with Lynch. Much of Gifford's work is nonfiction.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collects letters between Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and his friend and sometimes lover Neal Cassady, real-life inspiration for the character Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and author of, among other things, "The Joan Anderson Letter," a letter of 16 or more pages from Cassady to Kerouac, written in a free and improvisatory style that Kerouac later cited as a model for the sort of "spontaneous prose" he (Kerouac) employed in his own novels. It has been years since I read this, but I have kept my copy of it, so although I am not planning on rereading it at this time, I like having that option open to me. Too many other things I would want to read (or reread) first. If you are interested in Cassady or Ginsberg or the Beat Generation in general, go ahead and try this.

Acquired Oct 15, 1987
The Word, Montreal, Quebec