Book summary

A highly autobiographical novel, THE SUBTERRANEANS concerns Kerouac's affair with Mardou Fox, in which he loses her to the poet Gregory Corso. Peopled with characters based on the Beats, the novel was written, as was ON THE ROAD, on a roll of teletype paper. THE SUBTERRANEANS took Kerouac three nights and an ample supply of Benzedrine to write. It was not well-received, initially, except for a review by Henry Miller. Allan Ginsberg's name for Greenwich Village denizens was "subterraneans," from which Kerouac took his title. It is set in New York City, using San Francisco place-names, and modeled on Dostoevsky's NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND.

Media reviews

"It is sentimental, naive, pretentious and full of shocking lack of understanding of the world it describes. Since this is presumably the world of the author's own life, this is a pretty serious indictment. And yet it is not a bad book. Many people can accept Kerouac as a social problem who cannot see him as an artist. There is no question but when he does speak out of the Beat Generation, he is their authentic voice."