Next month sees the official publication of the new posthumous book from Rare Bird and Sal Paradise Press of Jack Kerouac – Self Portrait-Collected Writings (edited by Paul Maher Jr. and Charles Shuttleworth, with a Foreword by Jonathan Evison) -“the ultimate collection of previously unpublished writing.”
The publishers note:
“This collection of previously unpublished writing culled from the Kerouac archive, and as a companion to Paul Maher Jr.’s Becoming Kerouac, spans Kerouac’s adult life, from a journal written at age seventeen to autobiographical reflections a few years before his death. Self-Portrait is a blend of fictional and nonfictional pieces, a few abandoned starts but most complete in themselves and all of them chosen for the revelations they contain.”
“In The Moon and Sixpence, Somerset Maugham wrote, “A man’s work reveals him… No one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul.” There are more than two dozen Kerouac biographies, but Self-Portrait reveals the artist in his own words, from his early ambition to the deep self-examination of his “Self-Ultimacy” period, his three-year struggle to write On the Road, musings about himself and America in the half-dozen years before the novel was published and then in the aftermath amid his public withdrawal, suffering from alcoholism and hounded by fame. Through it all there are tortuous feelings about his family—love, guilt, duty, and betrayal. As fans of Kerouac have come to learn, reading his work is a visceral probe.”
A glimpse of the table of contents
A selected US release will see the books in the stores on July 16. However, pre-orders are available now (via the Estate – shipping out June 30). Estate-signed pre-orders will include an official Jack Kerouac Estate stamp and hand-numbering on the book’s title page, as well as an official Estate-signed certificate of authenticity signed by Jim Sampas, the The Jack Kerouac Estate’s Literary Executor.
This early access is available for customers who have bought either of the previous Sal Paradise/Rare Bird titles – Desolation Peak and/or Truth and Beautiful Meaningful Lies
More on this invaluable and important volume in the coming months.