This novel draws on a period when Kerouac, famous and worn down by drink, sought peace in a cabin on the California coast. The narrator, Jack Duluoz, hopes solitude and nature will restore him. He finds the quiet beautiful but also unsettling, and his return to San Francisco and its friends brings further strain. The book is a frank, anxious account of fame, loneliness and addiction, told in the author's flowing style. Darker in tone than his earlier work, it is valued for its honesty and its vivid descriptions of the sea and woods.
Quotes
Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun and joy and love or some sort of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH.
I feel guilty for being a member of the human race.