I read The Horn about 20 years ago now and interviewed Mr. Holmes at the University of Arkansas. This is a great read for the enthusiasm of the Beats for bebop jazz and jazz's connection with the whole Beat movement. As a student assigned to interview the university's resident Beat writer, I paid a visit to Mr. Holmes and drank a six-pack of beer and spent the afternoon and early evening with Mr. Holmes who talked more about Kerouac and Ginsberg than himself. He referred to Kerouac as a genius, and was exceptionally modest and considerate. However, I think his work stands up with the rest of the Beats and is very good. This is my favorite of his books. I find it interesting it's being released as a paperback in 1999. The Beat Generation is being passed to Generation Y.

Just a clarification of the synopsis offered by amazon (or newsweek) above. Although Go was published in 1952,5 years before On The Road, by Jack Kerouac, Kerouac had actually written On The Road in 1950 and it took him 7 years to get it published. Part of the problem was he had to get signed releases from everyone in the book, himself. Also, he had to change the names of towns, etc. There was a bit of tension between Holmes and Kerouac, but for the Beat scholar, Kerouac's novel can't be touched. On The Road stands alone. However, to be fair, and see another's view of things, Go is a fine book as well.

Whenever the immortal giants are discussed and associated with The Beat Generation the trinity of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Cassady top the list. After reading "Go" by John Clellon Holmes I feel he deserves some recognition. His story follows 4 major characters that howl through early 50's New York along with a cast of minor junkies, addicts and Hobbes' wife who can't decide what she wants. From smoky jazz clubs like The Go Hole and all night "tea" parties Hobbes(holmes), Pasternak(kerouac), Stofsky(ginsberg) and Kennedy(cassady) face life's situations and decisions with actions and reactions that portrayed most everyone who would become what is known as "The Beat Generation." And, as we all know, that was really the beginning of all that is hip, cool, far-out and trendy.

"Go," generally acknoweldged as the first of the Beat Generation novels, was Holmes' first novel and it shows many of the typical flaws of the first major work of a talented artist. The tone is incosistent, the plot tends to wander, and the first half the book has a tendency to drag. That said, "Go" is still a worthwhile novel. Much as his friend Jack Kerouac would later do, Holmes essentially records his life as an aspiring writer living on the fringes of the postwar New York underground. Under various aliases, such familiar characters as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady wander through the book. In its loose, episodic fashion, "Go" tells the story of a young writer who, while desperately trying to complete his first novel, watches his friends and wife dance through a decadent society, fueled by their own desire to say something original in a world that seems to fear and despise anything less than the purely conventional. Its a familiar plot but Holmes truly manages to capture both the excitement and the fear that goes with being both young and undiscovered. This a book that will be easily understood by anyone who has ever been convinced that they, for whatever reason, have been blessed with the ability to see both the beauties and the horrors of modern life that the rest of the world seems to safely ignore. As well, the book serves as a sad lament for both the promise and the ultimate fate of the original members of the Beat Generation. Though Holmes couldn't have realized it at the time, some of the book's most powerful scenes comes from having the knowledge of the ignominous fates that await characters like Gene Pasternak (Jack Kerouac) and Hart Kennedy (Neal Cassady) once they find the success that they are so desperately seeking. Even if uneven, it makes for an exhilirating read that, in the wonderful final chapter, truly does leave the reader feeling as if he has -- for a moment -- been transported back to the New York of the 1950s, when it truly seemed that these fatally flawed geniuses held the future and the salvation of American literature in their hands.

Though he is usually credited with both coining the much maligned term "Beat Generation" as well as writing "Go," the first truly Beat novel, John Clellon Holmes has long been overshadowed by more experimental contemporaries like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. As Holmes himself acknowledged in personal interviews and this autobiographical novel, he was always on the fringe of the main Beat group -- i.e., a somewhat conservative, responsible intellectual trying to make a name for himself amongst a group that prided itself on being neither conservative nor responsible. Holmes is one of the few important Beat figures to never figure importantly into any of Kerouac's novels and his writing style was far more conventional than those of the better known Beats. As a result, "Go" has too often been unjustly ignored by modern-day adherents to the Beat Generation. This is unfair because "Go," though certainly imperfect, is still a valuable look at these future mythological figures before they become legends and is an entertaining work on its own.

John Clellon Holmes was at the core of the so-called Beat Generation; he was present at the Times Square Coffee Shop, with Burroughs and Huncke, when Kerouac first defined the term. However, Holmes hasn't seemed to garner the attention of his more celebrated colleagues. This is true for a number of reasons. One, his life was more stable and ordinary than his friends', although he was still quite active in the bohemian events of the day. Two, his narrative style is much more traditonal than Burroughs, Kerouac, et al. For both reasons, the media has less to focus on--from a sensationalist angle. From a literary perspective, though, critics have a wonderful specimen. Holmes is a gifted writer. Go is perhaps the most accomplished novel chronicling the "beat" experience. It is not astonishing or avant-garde in structure, language, or plot--it is simply a great work. Go is full of astute insights regarding the era and its values. Holmes has a great deal of skill with the nuances of character and setting. Get Home Free, on the other hand, doesn't quite live up to the promise of Holmes' early work. The vitality is still there, but as the reader moves away from Manhattan, the details are neither as compelling nor as vivid.