Jack Kerouac King of the beats

The short, unhappy life of Jack Kerouac is chronicled in this quality documentary, which tells his story through a combination of vintage photos/film clips and dramatic reenactments. Kerouac quit college; enlisted in the military but quit that, too; then bummed around, thumbing rides from coast to coast, never settling in any one place for long. He always seemed to be pounding that road, searching for something that eluded him. The only constant in his life was his desire to write, which never ebbed regardless of how depressed, lonely, or intoxicated he became. This documentary follows the celebrated author from his small-town New England roots in Lowell, MA, to Columbia University, where he met the other young writers who would create the Beat Generation movement, to his decline and untimely death at age 47. Though he found fame during his lifetime, literary acknowledgment by critics would come posthumously. Along with video bites of Allan Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and family members, this DVD features a photo gallery and extended footage of a quite drunk Kerouac appearing on TV's Firing Line. An especially nice extra is new footage and stills of the famous scroll manuscript of On the Road that was purchased recently at private auction. Though it lacks fine detail, this disc offers a solid portrayal of Kerouac's life and will appeal to his legion of fans. Recommended.-Michael Rogers, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.