Nicosia, Gerald; Blake Jr., Paul (Kerouac, Jack)

Kerouac: The Last Quarter Century with: Treatise by Paul Blake Jr. (Jack Kerouac's Nephew)

ISBN: 9780578401409
Corte Madera, CA: Noodlebrain Press; Paul Blake Jr., 2019; 2003. Limited First Lettered-Signed Edition; Signed First Edition. Softcover; Stapled Sheets. Book hand-lettered & signed by Gerald Nicosia & Paul Blake III; treatise signed by Paul Blake Jr. "Gerald Nicosia wrote Memory Babe, the highly acclaimed biography of Jack Kerouac, who made millions of kids want to follow him on the road, then went back to his mommy, drank himself to death, and left a great estate. In dark irony, the American ethos he presented turned into the American pathos of politics, avarice, and criminality. That criminality/greed was embedded in the country's ethos all along, which is one of the quiet themes in Nicosia's new book...This book's timing is perfect for our country now. It all plays out like today's news: Money, lies, and collusion. In the publication of Kerouac: The Last Quarter Century, one gets to see the truth that was supposed to have been." (abridged quote of Charles Plymell, from back cover) Gerald Nicosia, our friend & colleague at the European Beat Studies Network (ebsn.eu), wrote the deepest & most acclaimed critical biography of Jack Kerouac, Founding Father of the Beat Generation: Memory Babe. He has continued his Kerouac scholarship, & his advocacy for Kerouac's blood family, to this day. In this volume, Nicosia recounts in detail his involvement with the late Jan Kerouac, the daughter who was cut out of his legacy & was even more ill-fated than her father; Kerouac's nephew, the late Paul Blake Jr. & his son Paul Blake III, Kerouac's grandnephew. The controversy over Kerouac's estate, still ongoing, is exposed in all its sordidness by this supreme Kerouac authority-crusader. With two short prologues & many photographs of the principals taken during this quarter-century saga from 1994-2019, including at the legendary Beat Generation Conference held at NYU in NYC in 1994 which this writer attended & first met Nicosia; laudatory blurbs for this work & Memory Babe by iconic writers including Literary Outlaw Plymell (quoted above), William S. Burroughs, Ed Sanders & others. Trade-format softcover original, one of 26 hand-lettered copies signed by Nicosia & Paul Blake III, with an original photograph of Paul Blake Jr. signed by Nicosia on verso attached opposite colophon. This is copy "E." Along with this volume, we have included a short treatise by Paul Blake Jr. entitled "Why I Will Fight and Win the Kerouac Lawsuit," stapled sheets with text and several reproduced vintage photographs of the Kerouac family. Stated first edition signed by Paul Blake Jr. on front sheet. Two outstandingly rare & important collectibles that shed much-needed light & fill in the blanks on the legacy & afterlife of Jack Kerouac. Book in very fine, virtually as-new condition with only a bit of rubbing & scratching to front, back covers & spine; a few tiny bumps & short, faint creases at/ near thin edges & corners of same. Interior with only tiny bumps, creases at esp. lower corners of some page leaves. Treatise in very fine, also all-but-as-new condition with only a few tiny bumps at edges & corners of sheets. Very Fine. [Item #4327]

Price: $250.00