FIRST PARAGRAPHS: JACK KEROUAC “THE SUBTERRANEANS”

first edition on Zebra Books

“ONCE I was young and had so much orientation and could talk with nervous intelligence about everything and with clarity and without as much literary preambling as this: in other words this is the story of an unself-confident man, at the same time of an egomaniac, naturally, facetious won’t do-just to start at the beginning and let the truth seep out, thats what I’ll do-. I’ll begin on a warm summer night-, ah, she was sitting on the fender with Julien Alexander who is…..let me begin with the history of the subterraneans of San Francisco….”