Self-Portrait | Agenda Bookshop Skip to content
Please note that books with a 10-20 working days delivery time may not arrive before Christmas.
Please note that books with a 10-20 working days delivery time may not arrive before Christmas.
A01=Jack Kerouac
A23=Jonathan Evison
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Jack Kerouac
automatic-update
B01=Charles Shuttleworth
B01=Paul Maher Jr.
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BGL
COP=United States
Delivery_Pre-order
Language_English
PA=Not yet available
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch

Self-Portrait

English

By (author): Jack Kerouac

A collection of previously unpublished writing culled from the Kerouac archive 

Jack Kerouacs archive is vast. Throughout his life he was constantly writing, and he meticulously saved and catalogued his material. The result is that beyond the work published in his lifetime there has been a rich stream of posthumous writing that is far from tapped, adding depth to his lifeworkthe Duluoz Legendand our understanding of Kerouac the man. Far from being the adrenalized thrill-seeker that he depicted in On the Roads Dean Moriarty, Kerouac himself was deeply spiritual, shy, and reclusive. He sought adventures for the sake of experience, needing them to fuel his writing, which according to him was his sole reason for living. Few people sacrificed more for their art.

This collection of previously unpublished writing culled from the Kerouac archive, and as a companion to Paul Maher Jr.'s Becoming Kerouac, spans Kerouacs adult life, from a journal written at age seventeen to autobiographical reflections a few years before his death. Self-Portrait is a blend of fictional and nonfictional pieces, a few abandoned starts but most complete in themselves and all of them chosen for the revelations they contain. 

In The Moon and Sixpence, Somerset Maugham wrote, A mans work reveals him No one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul. There are more than two dozen Kerouac biographies, but Self-Portrait reveals the artist in his own words, from his early ambition to the deep self-examination of his Self-Ultimacy period, his three-year struggle to write On the Road, musings about himself and America in the half-dozen years before the novel was published and then in the aftermath amid his public withdrawal, suffering from alcoholism and hounded by fame. Through it all there are tortuous feelings about his familylove, guilt, duty, and betrayal. As fans of Kerouac have come to learn, reading his work is a visceral probe.


See more
Current price €31.03
Original price €36.50
Save 15%
A01=Jack KerouacA23=Jonathan EvisonAge Group_UncategorizedAuthor_Jack Kerouacautomatic-updateB01=Charles ShuttleworthB01=Paul Maher Jr.Category1=Non-FictionCategory=BGLCOP=United StatesDelivery_Pre-orderLanguage_EnglishPA=Not yet availablePrice_€20 to €50PS=Activesoftlaunch

Will deliver when available. Publication date 26 Sep 2024

Product Details
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 26 Sep 2024
  • Publisher: Rare Bird Books
  • Publication City/Country: United States
  • Language: English
  • ISBN13: 9781644283790

About Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell Massachusetts in 1922 the youngest of three children in a Franco-American family. He attended local Catholic and public schools and won a scholarship to Columbia University in New York City where he first met Neal Cassady Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. His first novel The Town and the City appeared in 1950 but it was On the Road published in 1957 and memorializing his adventures with Neal Cassady that epitomized to the world what became known as the Beat generation and made Kerouac one of the most best-known writers of his time. Publication of many other books followed among them The Dharma Bums The Subterraneans and Big Sur. Kerouac considered all of his autobiographical fiction to be part of one vast book The Duluoz Legend. He died in St. Petersburg Florida in 1969 at the age of forty-seven. Paul Maher Jr. is a freelance writer and editor. He is also author/editor of Kerouac: His Life and Work; and editor of Tom Waits On Tom Waits: Interviews & Encounters with Tom Waits; Miles On Miles: Interviews & Encounters with Miles Davis; One Big Soul: An Oral History of the Films of Terrence Malick; and Isolated Wanderer: A Maxwell Bodenheim Reader. He lives in Lubec Maine with his wife Caitlin. Charles Shuttleworth is senior editor of Sal Paradise Press. As such he edited Desolation Peak published in 2022 which consists of Kerouacs writing during his two-month stint as a fire lookout for the US Forest Service in the North Cascades in 1956; and the next volume The Buddhist Years focuses on writings from 195457 revealing how Kerouacs study of Buddhism led to spiritual insights and colored his fiction. Shuttleworth has been teaching classes on Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation for the past thirty years currently at the Harker School in San Jose California.  Jonathan Evison is the New York Timesbestselling author of seven novels including All About Lulu West of Here The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving This Is Your Life Harriet Chance! Lawn Boy Legends of the North Cascades and Small World. As a teen Evison was the founding member of the punk band March of Crimes which included future members of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. He lives with his wife and family in Washington State.

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue we'll assume that you are understand this. Learn more
Accept