Your reviewer for this title, who grew up together with “The Beat Generation” in the 1950s and 1960s, was ironically amused to note that project editor, Lynn M. Zott, was born in 1969, by which time Beat Poetry and art were no longer being produced. Despite her lack of personal experience of the era Ms Zott, and the Gale Critical Companion Advisory Board, have assembled a mass of written and illustrative material which was previously published in books and periodicals in the USA. The Gale Critical Companion series is aimed at the research requirements of upper secondary school and undergraduate students and provides selected reprinted essays, primary source documents, chronologies, sidebars and supplemental photographs. The sidebars include summaries of important historical events, newspaper clippings, brief biographies of important non‐literary figures, etc. The preface tells us that “the reprinted essays seek to explain the major themes and literary techniques of the authors and literary works” and these form the main part of the volumes. Each essay is headed by author name, date of publication and source, together with a very brief summary of content by the project editor.
Volume one, “Topics”, opens with an overview of the period followed by topical essays covering the Beat Generation and its relationship to publishing, visual and performing arts. Volumes two and three (authors A‐H and authors I‐Z) have entries for 29 major literary figures associated with the movement. Author entries include introductions, a representative list of major works, primary source documents, reprinted criticism and lists of further reading sources. Authors featured range from the well‐known – Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac – to the less famous, such as the novelist, short story writer and playwright Chandler Brossard, who deserves to be more widely read.
The topics covered in volume one, as well as those mentioned above, include an analysis of “The beat scene” on the east coast as well as the more well known west coast venues. In this section, we are offered extracts from Kerouac’s On the Road, a long essay by Diana Trilling on her early association with Allen Ginsberg, an interview with Ginsberg dating from 1978 and a detailed analysis by Paul George and Jerold Starr tracing the rise and spread of the Beat Generation in New York and San Francisco “characterising it as a ‘countercultural rebellion’ that arose in opposition to the conformity and consumerism of contemporary society”.
A chronology of key events in the history of the Beat Generation and comprehensive author, title and subject indexing complete each volume.
