From Publishers Weekly
Much of Kerouac's reputation rests on his first two novels, and these selections from a series of spiral notebooks into which the fledgling author constantly poured story ideas and private thoughts offer an intimate perspective on those novels' development. Anybody who's ever started a novel will grasp Kerouac's obsession with his daily word count and the periodic frustration and self-doubt. "I know that I should never have been a writer," Kerouac laments at one dark moment; in another, he wonders, "Why doesn't God appear to tell me I'm on the right track?" Historian Brinkley, author most recently of a book on John Kerry (Tour of Duty), addresses this religious devotion in an introduction that effectively establishes the historical context, clarifying, too, just how much time Kerouac really spent refining the allegedly spontaneous On the Road. Still, there's plenty of the familiar Kerouac on hand: all-night drunken conversations with other Beat writers, casual sexual encounters and a final notebook entitled "Rain and Rivers," filled with real-life episodes in an early version of the freewheeling style that transformed Kerouac from a promising young novelist to a literary legend. These journals are an essential resource for American literature scholars, but the force of Kerouac's personality makes them an engrossing read for lay admirers. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–These entries cover Kerouac's mid-20s, when he was completing his first novel, The Town and the City, and beginning what were to become Dr. Sax and On the Road. Much of the book is devoted to issues of writing–character, plot, style–and a daily obsession with word count that any writer will appreciate. Discussions of favorite authors like Céline, Twain, and Dostoyevsky highlight some influences, and Kerouac shows his early iconoclastic tendencies through an almost rampant hatred of academics and the literary establishment. Anecdotes about partying with Allen Ginsburg and William S. Burroughs, the New York jazz world, and finding a girlfriend are peppered throughout. The final section is devoted to the cross-country trip made with Neal Cassady and others that inspired On the Road. These narratives of the landscapes of the U.S. and Mexico are hauntingly beautiful and contain hints of the quasi-spontaneous style that made both Kerouac and the Beat movement so different and so popular. The introduction, notations, and index are invaluable to those less familiar with the time period or Kerouac's life. But the real charm of this title is in his words; seeing this young, brilliant author develop and continually push himself toward greatness is gripping and astonishing. The reality of Kerouac proves far more moving and interesting than the bad-boy image.–Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale

From Booklist
The Kerouac archive continues to yield gold. Readers have encountered the discerning, observant, spiritual, and driven writer behind the glamorized iconographic Beat image in Kerouac's revealing letters. Now historian Brinkley ably and avidly introduces the lustrous and awe-inspiring journals Kerouac kept from mid-1947 to early 1954, the years during which he wrote his first novel, The Town and the City, and the novel that made him famous, On the Road. Here Kerouac meticulously records how many words he writes each day, what he's reading, and the nature of his moods. He writes character sketches and test-drives scenes. He makes resolutions, comments fervently on the state of the American soul, and describes places he travels to, wild binges, and epic conversations. And he gives thanks to God. Ravenous and raving, exacting and lyrical, exalted and despairing, profoundly receptive to the world and relentlessly introspective, Kerouac, as much a mystic as he was an artist, sought redemption in writing and wrote like a desolate angel. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
Jack Kerouac is best known through the image he put forth in his autobiographical novels. Yet it is only his prolific journals, in which he set down the raw material of his life and thinking, that reveal to us the real Kerouac—his true, honest, deep, private, philosophical self. In Windblown World, distinguished Americanist Douglas Brinkley has gathered a selection of journal entries from the most pivotal period of Kerouac’s life, 1947–1954. Here is Kerouac as a hungry young writer finishing his first novel, The Town and City, while forging crucial friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. Truly a self-portrait of the artist as a young man, these journals show a sensitive soul charting his own progress as a writer and responding to his literary forebears. Finally and perhaps most appealing to Kerouac’s legion of fans, the journals tell of the events that would eventually be immortalized in On the Road, as Kerouac narrates two trips across the United States and Mexico and slowly cultivates his idea for a jazz novel. This unique and indispensable volume is sure to garner major critical attention and become an integral element of the Beat oeuvre.

About the Author
Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922 and died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969. He is the author of the Beat classic On the Road and his other works include The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. Douglas Brinkley is professor of history and director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. He is the award-winning author of twelve books, including, most recently, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Windblown World, distinguished historian Douglas Brinkley has gathered together a selection of journal entries from the most pivotal period of Kerouac's intrepid life, beginning in 1947 when he was twenty-five years old and ending in 1954. Truly a self-portrait of the artist as a young man, these journals show a sensitive soul charting his own progress as a writer and responding to his most important literary forebears, which included Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Spengler, Joyce, Twain, and Thomas Wolfe. Here is Kerouac as a hungry young writer struggling to perfect and finish his first novel, The Town and the City, while forging crucial friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Neal Cassady. The journals go on to tell of the events that would eventually be immortalized in On the Road, as Kerouac travels through every region of the country and slowly cultivates his idea for a jazz novel. The peripatetic Kerouac's lifelong devotion to mystical Catholicism and his tremendous love of "the essential and everlasting America" abound in these confessional pages, as do his brooding melancholy, his youthful doubts and chronic fears, and his overriding conviction that there would soon be a "great new revolution of the soul."

FROM THE CRITICS

Walter Kirn - The New York Times

The publication of Windblown World, a collection of Kerouac's early journals edited by Douglas Brinkley (a sober, well-known political historian who seems an unlikely candidate for the job), may at first strike readers as an attempt to squeeze yet more toothpaste out of Kerouac's flattened tube. Fortunately, the book is better than that. For one thing, unlike other posthumous volumes that have worn Kerouac's name, it's readable. By doing a little tinkering and splicing, which he describes in his helpful introduction, Brinkley has made the journals flow. Most important, though, the entries tell a story of self-invention, perseverance and breakthrough that should help rescue Kerouac from the cultists and secure his admission to the mainstream hall of fame, where he deserves to rest.

Publishers Weekly

Much of Kerouac's reputation rests on his first two novels, and these selections from a series of spiral notebooks into which the fledgling author constantly poured story ideas and private thoughts offer an intimate perspective on those novels' development. Anybody who's ever started a novel will grasp Kerouac's obsession with his daily word count and the periodic frustration and self-doubt. "I know that I should never have been a writer," Kerouac laments at one dark moment; in another, he wonders, "Why doesn't God appear to tell me I'm on the right track?" Historian Brinkley, author most recently of a book on John Kerry (Tour of Duty), addresses this religious devotion in an introduction that effectively establishes the historical context, clarifying, too, just how much time Kerouac really spent refining the allegedly spontaneous On the Road. Still, there's plenty of the familiar Kerouac on hand: all-night drunken conversations with other Beat writers, casual sexual encounters and a final notebook entitled "Rain and Rivers," filled with real-life episodes in an early version of the freewheeling style that transformed Kerouac from a promising young novelist to a literary legend. These journals are an essential resource for American literature scholars, but the force of Kerouac's personality makes them an engrossing read for lay admirers. Agent, Sterling Lord. (Oct. 11) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Edited by Douglas Brinkley, director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-These entries cover Kerouac's mid-20s, when he was completing his first novel, The Town and the City, and beginning what were to become Dr. Sax and On the Road. Much of the book is devoted to issues of writing-character, plot, style-and a daily obsession with word count that any writer will appreciate. Discussions of favorite authors like C line, Twain, and Dostoyevsky highlight some influences, and Kerouac shows his early iconoclastic tendencies through an almost rampant hatred of academics and the literary establishment. Anecdotes about partying with Allen Ginsburg and William S. Burroughs, the New York jazz world, and finding a girlfriend are peppered throughout. The final section is devoted to the cross-country trip made with Neal Cassady and others that inspired On the Road. These narratives of the landscapes of the U.S. and Mexico are hauntingly beautiful and contain hints of the quasi-spontaneous style that made both Kerouac and the Beat movement so different and so popular. The introduction, notations, and index are invaluable to those less familiar with the time period or Kerouac's life. But the real charm of this title is in his words; seeing this young, brilliant author develop and continually push himself toward greatness is gripping and astonishing. The reality of Kerouac proves far more moving and interesting than the bad-boy image.-Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews