Like many a child of the Sixties, I exalted over the writings and the adventures of Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and the other Beats, but it was a free spirit by the name of Neal Cassady who held a special attraction for me.
For want of a better way of saying it, Cassady was the Beats’ mascot. He was the catalyst for many of their writings and figured most prominently in the novels of Kerouac. While an underachieving writer who had a tortured relationship with his own literary muse, Cassady is credited with weaning the author of On the Road and Dharma Bums, my favorite Kerouac book, from his realist moorings into his now legendary stream of consciousness approach.
Years later – and after a fair number of adventures myself, including some with a friend who is in some respects the epitome of Cassady – I came to understand that there was a dark side to some of the most prominent Beats: A raging narcissism, alcohol and drug abuse, thievery, plagiarism and a “Me First Always” approach to life that left friends and lovers feeling victimized.
As I wrote here in an article titled “The Summer of Love Reconsidered,” much the same can be said of the hippie movement that grew out of the Beat Generation. Cassady was a central figure in some of the most hallowed antics of that era, most notoriously as the driver of Furthur, the road trip bus of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters immortalized in Tom Wolfe‘s marvelous Electric Kool Aid Acid Test.
There certainly was a dark side to Cassady, which is on full display in Neal Cassady: The Fast Life of a Beat Hero, a newish book by David Sandison and Graham Vickers.
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