Originally published in 1985 by Fred McDarrah (Beat Generation), picture editor of the Village Voice
for more than 40 years, this book takes a refreshingly direct documentarian gaze at an overdocumented and mythologized set of writers and artists. Fred McDarrah was there when the group centered on Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs was first working out its thing, and assiduously documented the process, which included scores of people seen here but less frequently mentioned in connection with the movement: Ted Joans, John Clellon Holmes, Thomas McGrath, Mimi Margeaux, artist Fielding Dawson, Seymour Krim and many others. Completely reset and reformatted with fils
Timothy (a Las Vegas Sun
columnist), the book is organized around 30 journalistic pieces and essays contemporary to the movement, including Norman Podhoretz's "Youth Disaffiliated
from a Phony World," several pieces by Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Buddhists Find a Beatnik 'Spy'," and Gilbert Millstein's "Youth Will Serve Itself." But the stars of the show are the 260candid b&w photos, showing the men (and it is mostly men) going about their literary business unassumingly. (Jan.)
