In 1944--under circumstances that remain rather mysterious--an aspiring writer named Jack Kerouac lost a novella-length manuscript title The Haunted Life, a coming-of-age story set in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts.

Kerouac set his fictional treatment of Peter Martin against the backdrop of the everyday. Peter is heading into his sophomore year at Boston College, and while home for the summer in Galloway he struggles with the pressing issues of his day--the economic crisis of the previous decade and what appears to be the impending entrance of the United States into the...

"As an early supporter of the original non-Communist Cuban revolution, I much appreciate this story of the involvement of American beat poets with the Fidelista cause. Dubbed the 'Cubalogues, ' their interaction with Cuban editors and poets is a unique part of Cuban cultural history, and it needs to be told to an American audience."--Lawrence Ferlinghetti"An exciting, timely, and wide-ranging intervention which reassesses the Beat Movement, the Beat canon, Cold War politics, and the Cuban Revolution. . . . A tight, lively and skillful presentation of the topic."--Sarah MacLachlan, author of...