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Gone in October: Last Reflections on Jack Kerouac
The Limberlost Press - 1985
- GenresBiography
78 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
About the author
John Clellon Holmes
27 books45 followersJohn Clellon Holmes, born in Holyoke Massachusetts, was an author, poet and professor, best known for his 1952 novel Go. Go is considered the first "Beat" novel, and depicted events in his life with friends Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg. He was often referred to as the "quiet Beat," and was one of Kerouac's closest friends. He also wrote what is considered the definitive jazz novel of the Beat Generation, The Horn.
Holmes was more an observer and documenter of beat characters like Ginsberg, Cassidy and Kerouac than one of them. He asked Ginsberg for "any and all information on your poetry and your visions" (shortly before Ginsberg's admission into hospital) saying that "I am interested in knowing also anything you may wish to tell... about Neal, Huncke, Lucien in relation to you..." (referring to Herbert Huncke and Lucien Carr), to which Ginsberg replied with an 11-page letter detailing, as completely as he could, the nature of his "divine vision".
The origin of the term beat being applied to a generation was conceived by Jack Kerouac who told Holmes "You know, this is really a Beat Generation." The term later became part of common parlance when Holmes published an article in The New York Times Magazine entitled "This Is the Beat Generation" on November 16, 1952 (pg.10). In the article Holmes attributes the term to Kerouac, who had acquired the idea from Herbert Huncke. Holmes came to the conclusion that the values and ambitions of the Beat Generation were symbolic of something bigger, which was the inspiration for Go.
Later in life, Holmes taught at the University of Arkansas, lectured at Yale and gave workshops at Brown University. He died of cancer in 1988, 18 days after his 62nd birthday.
Holmes was more an observer and documenter of beat characters like Ginsberg, Cassidy and Kerouac than one of them. He asked Ginsberg for "any and all information on your poetry and your visions" (shortly before Ginsberg's admission into hospital) saying that "I am interested in knowing also anything you may wish to tell... about Neal, Huncke, Lucien in relation to you..." (referring to Herbert Huncke and Lucien Carr), to which Ginsberg replied with an 11-page letter detailing, as completely as he could, the nature of his "divine vision".
The origin of the term beat being applied to a generation was conceived by Jack Kerouac who told Holmes "You know, this is really a Beat Generation." The term later became part of common parlance when Holmes published an article in The New York Times Magazine entitled "This Is the Beat Generation" on November 16, 1952 (pg.10). In the article Holmes attributes the term to Kerouac, who had acquired the idea from Herbert Huncke. Holmes came to the conclusion that the values and ambitions of the Beat Generation were symbolic of something bigger, which was the inspiration for Go.
Later in life, Holmes taught at the University of Arkansas, lectured at Yale and gave workshops at Brown University. He died of cancer in 1988, 18 days after his 62nd birthday.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 3, 2022
John Clellon Holmes was an excellent writer. I love his use of language and his emotion, and as you read this book you can sense how it poured out of him as he sat at his typewriter.
You don't have to love Kerouac to read this book, because though he is Holmes's muse here, so much of what Holmes writes of is understandable by anyone who has loved, liked, admired, or simply been an acquaintance of another person barreling unstoppable down a destructive path. Sometimes there's not much that can be done but hold their hand until at last it slips from your grasp.
You don't have to love Kerouac to read this book, because though he is Holmes's muse here, so much of what Holmes writes of is understandable by anyone who has loved, liked, admired, or simply been an acquaintance of another person barreling unstoppable down a destructive path. Sometimes there's not much that can be done but hold their hand until at last it slips from your grasp.
March 29, 2022
Five superb essays by John Clellon Holmes (who coined the term "Beat Generation") covering his long friendship with Jack Kerouac, his recollections of Kerouacs's funeral, and a gathering honoring what would have been Kerouac's 60th birthday at the Naropa Institute. Holmes creates a superb flow as a writer, and his evocation of Kerouac's New England, and Lowell in particular, is transcendent to read. Limberlost makes a handsome chapbook, and this one, released for Jack Kerouac's centenary, is right on time.
December 7, 2022
It’s been over fifteen years since I’ve read John Clellon Holmes and this short collection has inspired me to read his works again. He reads like a pipe and a glass of bourbon next to a fireplace on a snowy night, with clarity and warmth. There isn’t the frenzied movement and experimentation his contemporaries were known for. There’s something more solid, more stable with Holmes’ work that I appreciate now that I’m older, maybe wiser. Anyhow, talk about the impulse buy of the year….
June 5, 2022
Remembrances of a close friend.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews