What is the Subterraneans about?

What is the Subterraneans about?

About The Book Centering around the tempestuous breakup of Leo Percepied and Mardou Fox—two denizens of the 1950s San Francisco underground—The Subterraneans is a tale of dark alleys and smoky rooms, of artists, visionaries, and adventurers existing outside mainstream America’s field of vision.

Which 19th century novel did Kerouac model the Subterraneans?

In the novella, Kerouac moved the story to San Francisco and renamed Alene Lee “Mardou Fox”. She is described as a carefree spirit who frequents the jazz clubs and bars of the budding Beat scene of San Francisco….The Subterraneans.

First edition
Author Jack Kerouac
Pages Approx. 111 pp
ISBN 0-8021-3186-7
OCLC 285385

Who wrote the Subterraneans?

Jack Kerouac
The Subterraneans/Authors

Who is Mardou Fox?

Kerouac used the pseudonym Mardou Fox for Lee. Lee was also the model for the character of Irene May in Book of Dreams and Big Sur. During her lifetime, Lee shunned publicity, but her daughter has written about her life.

Is the Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac a true story?

The Subterraneans is a 1958 novella by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. It is a semi-fictional account of his short romance with Alene Lee (1931-1991), an African-American woman, in Greenwich Village, New York.

What did Jack Kerouac write about in on the road?

Jack Kerouac, one of the great voices of the Beat generation and author of the classic On the Road, here continues his peregrinations in postwar, underground San Francisco. “The subterraneans” come alive at night, travel along dark alleyways, and live in a world filled with paint, poetry, music, smoke, and sex.

How did Jack Kerouac die?

Kerouac died of an internal hemorrhage, in 1969. Written over the course of three days and three nights, The Subterraneans was generated out of the same kind of ecstatic flash of inspiration that produced another one of Kerouac’s early classics, On The Road.

Is Mardou Fox black in the Subterraneans?

Main article: The Subterraneans (film) A 1960 film adaptation changed the African American character Mardou Fox, Kerouac’s love interest, to a young French girl (played by Leslie Caron) to better fit both contemporary social and Hollywood palates.

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