“Dave Moore's work on this collection is simply awesome....  It should become and remain the definitive reference book for Beat scholars forever.” —Carolyn Cassady Neal Cassady is best remembered today as Jack Kerouac’s muse and the basis for the character “Dean Moriarty” in Kerouac’s classic On The Road , and as one of Ken Kesey’s merriest of Merry Pranksters, the driver of the psychedelic bus “Further,” immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test . This collection brings together more than two hundred letters to Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, John Clellon Holmes, and other Beat generation luminaries, as well as correspondence between Neal and his wife, Carolyn. These amazing letters cover Cassady’s life between the ages of 18 and 41 and finish just months before his death in February 1968. Brilliantly edited by Dave Moore, this unique collection presents the “Soul of the Beat Generation” in his own words—sometimes touching and tender, sometimes bawdy and hilarious.  Here is the real Neal Cassady—raw and uncut. Neal Cassady--that happening, hard-living, hard-loving hero of the Beat culture is fully here--in his own words. Cassady was part raw sexuality, part inspiration for Kerouac and Ginsberg, part arrogant con man, and part insecure, indecisive drifter. The only thing we can be sure of is that Cassady possessed some major charisma. Women bore his children and his absences and not only coped with but even approved of his interchangeable partner approach. Men fell in love with him, too, whether sexually or in pure awe. Cassady's letters show this and more, revealing a sometimes manic yet incredibly insightful and electric mind and a man so charged with emotion for life and open to his urges that he seemed unable to settle anywhere (including within his various selves) for very long. Well edited and annotated, this volume is an essential addition to Beat literature that strengthens the notion of Cassady as a major Beat figure and, more important, presents Cassady as a man, not an icon. Janet St. John Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved ?Dave's work on this collection is simply awesome.... It should become and remain the definitive reference book for Beat scholars forever.? (Carolyn Cassady) Dave s work on this collection is simply awesome.... It should become and remain the definitive reference book for Beat scholars forever. (Carolyn Cassady) aDaveas work on this collection is simply awesome.... It should become and remain the definitive reference book for Beat scholars forever.a (Carolyn Cassady) Daves work on this collection is simply awesome.... It should become and remain the definitive reference book for Beat scholars forever. (Carolyn Cassady) "Dave's work on this collection is simply awesome. . . . It should become and remain the definitive reference book for Beat scholars forever." Neal Cassady (1926–1968) was born on the side of the road in Salt Lake City and raised in Denver by an alcoholic father. On a trip to New York City in 1946, he encountered Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg on the campus of Columbia University, a meeting many consider the beginning of the Beat movement.