Desolation Angels

A Novel

By: Jack Kerouac

Narrated by: Andrew Eiden

Originally published in 1965, this autobiographical novel covers a key year in Jack Kerouac’s life—the period that led up to the publication of On the Road in September of 1957.

After spending two months in the summer of 1956 as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington, Kerouac’s fictional self Jack Duluoz comes down from the isolated mountains to the wild excitement of the bars, jazz clubs, and parties of San Francisco, before traveling on to Mexico City, New York, Tangiers, Paris, and London.

Duluoz attempts to extricate himself from the world but fails, for one must “live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.” Desolation Angels is quintessential Kerouac.

©1965 Jack Kerouac (P)2025 Blackstone Publishing

Novel or Journal ?

This isn't really a novel but a frenetically dark journal about the long descent from the Buddhic mountain top to the dark alleys of alcoholism and drug addiction. Along the way, Jack exposes the fake "cool" of the "beat" generation, and laments having been the cause of this cult, which he finds phony and pseudo-literate. After his failure to become a Bodhisattva, Jack returns with loving-kindness and humility to the Catholicism of his mother, and his childhood, reignited in the little peasant churches of Mexico. This book really doesn't come alive with Kerouac's improvised Charlie Parker bebop prose until Parts III and IV. The sea journey to Tangiers. The burning hashish visions of North Africa. The homeward angel wanderings through Marseilles and London to New York. The heart-breaking prose-poem to his mother in Part IV. One of the joys of reading this book is meeting real writers thinly disguised by pseudonyms. For example, "Bull" is William Burroughs, "Raphael" is Gregory Corso, "Irwin Garden" is Allen Ginsberg, "Cody" is Neil Cassidy, and "Dr. Williams" is William Carlos Williams. For sure, there is visionary Kerouac word-jazz in this book; but to find the islands of great writing, a patient reader must wade through some pretty dreary swamps.