"The Subterraneans" by Jack Kerouac

The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac

Written in a famous burst of about three nights of typing, The Subterraneans (1958) is Kerouac at his most raw and immediate. Narrator Leo Percepied is a young writer drifting through the bohemian underworld of San Francisco, a world of jazz, cheap wine, and restless talk. There he falls into an intense affair with Mardou Fox, a magnetic, vulnerable young woman who belongs to the circle of hipsters the book calls “the subterraneans.”

What follows is a love story told in headlong spontaneous prose: infatuation, jealousy, insecurity, and the fear of being close to someone. Leo’s own doubts and failings are as much a subject as the romance itself.

Short, fast, and confessional, it is a vivid portrait of the Beat scene at its height and a good companion to On the Road.