From the bard of the Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac'sMaggie Cassidyis an autobiographical novel of young love, published in Penguin Modern Classics.

Though publishers stoppedMaggie Cassidy'sJack Duluoz andOn the Road'sSal Paradise from sharing the same name, Kerouac meant the books to be two parts of the same life. WhileOn the Roadmade Paradise (and Kerouac) a hero for generations to come of the disaffected and restless,Maggie Cassidyis an affectionate portrait of the teenager that made the man - of friendship and first love growing up in a New England mill town. Duluoz is a high school athletics and football star who meets Maggie Cassidy and begins a devoted, inconstant, tender adolescent love affair. It is one of the most sustained, poetic pieces of Kerouac's 'spontaneous prose'.

Jack Kerouac (1922-69) was an American novelist, poet, artist and part of the Beat Generation. His first published novel,The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it wasOn the Road, published in 1957, that made Kerouac famous. Publication of his many other books followed, among themThe Subterraneans,Big Sur, andThe Dharma Bums. Kerouac died in Florida at the age of forty-seven.

If you enjoyedMaggie Cassidy, you might like Kerouac'sThe Subterraneans and Pic, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

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