A penniless writer named Sal Paradise becomes inspired to hitchhike across America, taking the listener on a freewheeling journey through the 1950s youth counterculture. Joining up with other fellow vagabonds who are in love with life and open to adventure, they explore jazz, sex, drugs, and mysticism on the fringes of society.
Credited as the book that launched Jack Kerouac's career, On the Road epitomized to the world the generation that Kerouac himself named as "beat." It created a sensation by chronicling a spontaneous and wandering way of life in a style that seemed founded both on jazz and on drug-induced visions.
Reflecting the jazzy style of its day, ON THE ROAD gave an honest vision to a post-war generation of bored youths longing for sex, drugs and adventure on the open road. Kerouac counterpoints the rhythms and structures of Sal Paradise's long, poetic sentences with Dean Moriarty's bursts of raw energy to create the music of this apotheosis of Beat. Tom Parker (aka Grover Gardner) performs with intelligence in pacing and characterization and complete awareness of meanings. Parker's strong but relaxed voice carries us through the lonely, love-starved American landscape in which the mystical (and now mythological) Moriarty fights a losing battle against oblivion. Tom Parker's performance is tremendous. He makes it seem so easy! P.W. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
AudioFile...
Reflecting the jazzy style of its day…Kerouac counterpoints the rhythms and structures of Sal Paradise's long, poetic sentences with Dean Moriarty's bursts of raw energy to create the music of this apotheosis of Beat. Tom Parker performs with intelligence in pacing and characterization and complete awareness of meanings….Parker's performance is tremendous. He makes it seem so easy!
About the Author
JACK KEROUAC (1922-1969) was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He attended local Catholic schools and eventually Columbia University, becoming in the 1940s and 1950s a member of what was to be called "the Beat generation." His first novel appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road (1957) that epitomized to the world the Beat philosophy.
...
