A Vast Glowing Empty Page

A Vast Glowing Empty Page: The Life and Writings of Jack Kerouac takes the reader from American writer Jack Kerouac's fledgling years in the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts through his last desperate years in St. Petersburg, Florida. Read of the hapless young man searching for his voice as a writer as he struggles through the pitfalls of school, family conflicts, poverty, World War II, fame and the growing social unrest of the 1960s. Using archival material such as journals, notebooks, diaries and letters as well as Kerouac's published books and letters, this extensive biographical portrait promises to be the most definitive and up-to-date exploration of this writer's life.


"[A] thoroughly researched and worthy biography. . . . Kerouac is an engaging mix of anecdote and archive.Tales of ecstasy and despair, of drugs and drunkenness and poetry, are counterbalanced by Maher's perceptive commentary and criticism. Kerouac himself comes over as a confused romantic perpetually in danger of self-destruction, a man driven by the twin demons of wanderlust." —Times Literary Supplement


"Kerouac research was for decades limited because his personal journals were unavailable to scholars. That has all changed now that the New York Public Library holds the Kerouac archive, which forms the basis of Maher's work. . . . A useful piece in a difficult puzzle [that] sheds new light on a writer of considerable interest." —Library Journal