On the Road (Penguin Classics)

Pulsating with the rhythms of fifties underground America, jazz, sex, illicit drugs, and the mystery and promise of the open road, Jack Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "Beat," and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than forty years ago. Based on Kerouac's adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends, whose four cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naivete and wild abandon, and imbued with Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope - vibrant, compelling, and full of wonder.