This Is the Beat Generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris

by James Campbell

Beginning in New York in 1944, James Campbell finds the leading members of what was to become the Beat Generation in the shadows of madness and criminality. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs had each seen the insides of a mental hospital and a prison by the age of thirty. A few months after they met, another member of their circle committed a murder that involved Kerouac and Burroughs as material witnesses.
This book charts the transformation of these experiences into literature, and a literary movement that spread across the globe. From "The First Cut-Up"--the murder in New York in 1944--we end up in Paris in 1960 with William Burroughs at the Beat Hotel, experimenting with the technique that made him notorious, what Campbell calls "The Final Cut-Up."
In between, we move to San Francisco, where Ginsberg gave the first public reading of Howl. We discover Burroughs in Mexico City and Tangiers; the French background to the Beats; the Buddhist influence on Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and others; the "Muses" Herbert Huncke and Neal Cassady; the tortuous history of On the Road; and the black ancestry of the white hipster.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Literature, Poetry, American, 20th Century

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

James Campbell is a Scottish writer. He left school at the age of fifteen to become an apprentice printer. After hitchhiking through Europe, Israel and North Africa, he studied to gain acceptance to the University of Edinburgh (1974–78). On graduating, he immediately became editor of the New Edinburgh Review (1978–82). His first book, Invisible Country: A Journey Through Scotland, was published in 1984. Two years later, Campbell published Gate Fever, “based on a year’s acquaintance with the prisoners and staff of Lewes Prison’s C Wing”.

Campbell's other books include Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin (1991, 2021), Paris Interzone (1994), Just Go Down to the Road: A Memoir of Trouble and Travel (2022). He worked for many years at the Times Literary Supplement and wrote the column 'J.C.' A collection of these appeared as NB by J.C.: A Walk Through the Times Literary Supplement in 2023.

Reviews

[Steve J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before reading this book I had a view of the Beat poets based on a general knowledge of the culture of the era. I would have said they were proto-hippies from around the mid-50s onward, sat in coffee bars declaiming poetry and listening to jazz.

This book is an excellent overview (albeit with enough detail to satisfy) of the history of the Beats and, to an extent disabused me of the view above. The book explores the history of the movement, which dates back to the 40s and stops around 1960 when the transition to hippies begins to take place.

The main characters - Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs - are dealt with in detail, as are some of the lesser known characters, in particular Neal Cassaday. The only quibble I would have is that it would have been interesting to go forwards just a couple more years to see how Cassaday and Ginsberg helped change the counter-culture. They linked up with Ken Kesey and the magic bus, which clearly shows how the Beats become the Hippies. It would have been interesting to have more on this in the book.

Anyway, a very interesting, readable book, fantastic as an entry point to the lives of the Beat poets.

[Paul Grimsley · Rating 2 out of 5]

The research that went into this book is painstaking -- you can tell from the facts that are reeled off, but that is also at times its primary weakness. It lacks the joy and energy that the work of its subjects possess. I originally felt that it was because I was being disabused of some romantic notion I had of the beats but that is not what grated -- sometimes the overabundance of information felt like an assault and it felt hard to move forwards; this book took me way too long to read and though it was enjoyable in parts and is a useful source of facts, there are books which capture the era and the figures in a less prosaic and frankly tedious manner.

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read so many recollections of this period of literature,it's a part of my coming of age in 1950's and 1960's.
This book is interesting because James Campbell is not American, he's Scottish and barely knew any of the writers. He has lots of information that he's gathered but sometimes I think he draws odd conclusions from a small amount of fact. For instance, when he tries to paint Kerouac and Ginsberg as racist. I've never read any substantial evidence of that. What interests me most about the book is it's an outsider's view of an American phenomena, the Beat Generation.

[Kc · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading "And the hippos were boiled in their tanks" I was moved to re-acqaint myself with the beat writers, something I hadn't really done since my late teens and twenties. Boy, what a bunch of thugs and jerks.

[Amber Tucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the first books I'm reading in preparation (hopefully) for my thesis, which I hope to concern with some aspect of the Beat Generation. Though I won't be doing my thesis for a while, I love a great deal of Beat writing, so it's no chore for me to start early. It wasn't even a chore for me to read this semi-biography, and I'm not usually into biographies.

"Is she mad?" you cry. "Not 'into' biographies?"

Well, in the past. Maybe now my tastes are changing. And maybe this was an unexpectedly well-written biography - I have often found I can hardly concentrate on the figure/s in question because of technically poor writing, no matter how thorough the research presented. James Campbell's not perfect this way, but he is at least more correct than other biographies I've attempted. More than this, he weaves a surprisingly artful path between story-telling and history-telling that makes this book highly readable. With larger-than-life "characters" like Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Carr and so on, that may not have been so difficult. Still, overall, I never felt that Campbell was fictionalizing or romanticizing his "characters," certainly never to the degree of being untrue to their histories. It could serve either as an introduction to the phenomenon or a somewhat more advanced study. I learned quite a bit, particularly regarding the distasteful mainstream-ization of Beat ("Beatnik"). Where I didn't learn, I still gained a differing perspective from my original less-informed one. Campbell had the daunting task of recounting a few dozen people's interacting lives, and he travels almost seamlessly between them. It's a pretty smooth road read.

I am biased, of course, because I am already passionate about their writing, both for and against various elements of the Beat aesthetic (and, much as an upper-middle class child of the new millennium can be, a little beat myself). The question remains for me, would this biography – if I didn't already have in my head a clear and fond picture of these figures – have brought alive the Beat Generation? I think it would have. Between the skillfully-chosen details amongst major 'events' – Ginsberg's visions, Burroughs' William Tell fiasco – and the sympathetic, not to say rose-coloured, depiction of those in Beatdom, this book takes you there. I think that, on some level, Campbell digs. As Ginsberg would say, the word at last!!!

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting account of Kerouac , Ginsberg, Burroughs and others.They were trying to capture something.I'm not sure if they were successful.Kerouac seemed to have a hugely inflated opinion of his ability.I found Kerouac's 'On the Road' disappointing although it has some good writing.

[ProofProfessor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really superb book about Burroughs et al., and brilliantly written. A joy to read such prose that has clearly been carefully revised, polished, edited and proofread. Publishing of a very high standard indeed.

[sisterimapoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good overview - a great way to see how all the individuals and their works tied together and fed into each other.

[Sammy Ginsberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic overview.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and entertaining history of not just the Beat Generation but also the period of time in primarily New York, Paris and San Francisco.

[Ruby Leo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worst book that i ve read about the Beat Generation, many pages and the writer didn't really say a thing.
I d recommend The portable Beat Reader by Ann Charters instead for the main texts of the generation, and different biographies for the authors such as Screaming with Joy: the Life of Allen Ginsberg