Paperback Giveaway: Carolyn Cassady's OFF THE ROAD

While the release date for the much-hyped film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s beat generation masterpiece On the Road remains ambiguous at best, our interest here at Overlook is keen. We’ve been known to publish a few 60s inspired novels ourselves, including the recently released Any Day Now from San Francisco sweetheart Terry Bisson. But our Suze to Kerouac’s Dylan is the aptly named, Off the Road, first published in the UK in 1990. In this critically acclaimed memoir by Carolyn Cassady, we’re introduced to the heart of a generation, the beguiling personas we know as Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac, known to Carolyn, respectively, as her husband, her lover, and her dear friend.

The intimate story of the remarkable friendship these three men shared could be told no better than by the woman who loved them all. This riveting account spans one of the most vital eras in twentieth-century literature and culture, including the explosive successes of Kerouac’s On The Road and Ginsberg’s Howl, the flowering Beat movement, and the social revolution of the 1960s. Cassady reveals a side of her husband rarely seen—that of a father and husban, a man who craved respectability, yet could not resist the thrills of a wilder and ultimately more destructive lifestyle.

Off the Road is available again exclusively from the Overlook Press, in a lovely new paperback edition whose release date is no mystery. Available March 27, we’d like to offer one lucky reader an early screening of this stunning memoir. All you need to do is Subscribe to the Winged Elephant to receive our thrice-weekly posts delivered straight to your mailbox. Subscribe before 9am (EST) tomorrow, and you'll be entered for a chance to win a copy!

PRAISE FOR OFF THE ROAD

“A poignant recollection—truthful, coarse, and inviting—teeming with the spirit of the men who inspired and symbolized the dreams of a generation.—San Francisco Chronicle

“Carolyn Cassady’s book is the one that I have been waiting ro read for the past forty years, the one that sets the record straight…one hell of a story.”—Sunday Times

"A great book as well as a wonderful autobiography."—Washington Post Book World

"This is the book to be read in tandem with Kerouacs On the Road, Ginsberg's Howl, and Tom Wolfe''s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It fits like the lost half of a broken plate."—The Literary Review

THE POETRY AND LIFE OF ALLEN GINSBERG in The Electric Review

Just reissued in paperback, The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg, is reviewed in The Electric Review: "Ed Sanders is a brilliant writer with a deeply original imagination – a man with the rare ability to synthesize thought into bite-sized chunks so that it can be easily absorbed into the dank cold buried crevices of the mind. Here, Sanders is able to capture the full breadth of Ginsberg’s epic life in fine detail, weaving the ‘life and times of Allen Ginsberg’ into a swift-rolling narrative poem that brings us back to the best elements of the late bard. Who else but the enigmatic Sanders would have the guts to write a biography in such sprawling form, using the non-structure of poetry to illuminate the sweet essence of the poet? This book is a true ‘page-turner’ from start-to-finish and serious students of the Beat era will find it indispensible." ~John Aiello