Synopses & Reviews
Often overlooked as a minor player on the fringes of the Beat Generation and largely dismissed by others as a scam artist, junkie, and hustler, Herbert Huncke was in fact a significant writer who served as a mentor and inspiration to such legendary figures as Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac. In this biography, author Hilary Holladay has given this unsung poet of the streets his due, both in terms of his own literary merit and the major role he played in influencing the Beats and many others. Detailing Huncke’s colorful life—from his childhood on a Wyoming rancher’s household and his family’s move to Chicago to his rebellion as a 12-year-old runaway and his subsequent run-ins with the law—Holladay traces his journeys that subsequently took him to Manhattan, where he became a guide to the city’s underbelly for those impressionable adventurers seeking the pulse of the city’s palpitating literary, artistic, and musical heart. Nominated for a Lambda Literary Prize when first published, this work establishes Herbert Huncke in the pantheon of the writers of his generation. With revised endnotes and a new index, the book confirms Huncke’s creative influence from the late 1940s to his death in 1996.
Review
“It is impossible to write about the Beat Generation without paying keen attention to the life and legacy of Herbert Huncke. Hilary Holladay does a magnificent job of documenting Huncke’s high-and-low cultural accomplishments. . . . An essential book.” —Douglas Brinkley, author, Cronkite
Review
“Herbert Huncke, heretofore a footnote in biographies of the Beats, has long deserved his own biography, and Hilary Holladay, a renowned Kerouac scholar, has given us a fascinating portrait of the man who gave the Beat movement its name . . . a tender and affecting book.” —Lambda Literary Review
Review
"Huncke not only gave Jack Kerouac the word 'Beat,' but also introduced him to a truly beat world . . . and had an important impact on American literature. We owe Holladay a deep debt for tracing Huncke’s influence with care and wisdom." —Dennis McNally, author, Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, The Beat Generation, and America
Review
"This biography goes to the heart. Hilary Holladay has uncovered ‘a life of sublime improbabilities.’ The facts she reveals are more affecting than the myth." —Jan Herman, author, The Z Collection: Fugitive Portraits (of Algren, Burroughs, Mailer, and other writers) and A Talent for Trouble: The Life of William Wyler
Synopsis
Muse and mentor to Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac--who said of him, "Huncke is the greatest storyteller I know, an absolute genius at it"-- Herbert Huncke steps out of the shadow of his more famous peers in this absorbing and tender biography by Hilary Holladay. In this richly-layered portrait, the unsung bard of the streets emerges in all his tattered glory: his painful childhood and adolescent rebellion; run-ins with the law; adventures at sea and riding the rails; and later life in his beloved New York City where he became a legendary denizen and guide to the new bohemians eager to learn from the wily master.
About the Author
Hilary Holladay is a scholar of American literature and the coeditor of What’s Your Road, Man?: Critical Essays on Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and the author of Wild Blessings: The Poetry of Lucille Clifton. She has taught at James Madison University and the University of Massachusetts–Lowell, where she was founding director of the Jack and Stella Kerouac Center for American Studies. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.