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Jack Kerouac's Avatar Angel: His Last Novel

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I am glad that I saved this book for summer night reading. This isn't some Beat nostalgia trip by a Kerouac wannabe. It's much better than that.

Here we have the ghost of Jack Kerouac involuntarily returned to earth. He didn't want to come back, but like life and death, it just happened. Also, like life, he has no idea why he has returned. He just awakened into renewed existance, 13 years after his death, looking physically thirteen years older, with a vague memory of having been somewhere else- maybe Mexico.

Kerouac is drawn back to the people who were linked to him in life. It isn't that he has any unfinished business with them, it is almost like a gravitational attraction. He is drawn to those people, and places where his influence lingers. It just so happens that most of the old friends and acquantances that he meets come across as pretty unsympathetic. Because they live so much in past memories they do not recognise him- or believe him, when he tells them who he is. He is just a crazy old bum. That is, except for Gary Snyder, and possibly Gregory Corso. So Kerouac wanders through 80's America becoming increasingly disillusioned by what his friends, and the country, has become. Yet, all through his travels, a mysterious Indian/ trainman/ biker/ sage keeps reappearing with just the right observations and comments....

Oh yes, the author even puts in a bowling ball-pumping cameo. He comes across as an angel. I guess when you write the book, then you get to be an angel if you want to be....

The idea behind this book is intriguing. Jack Kerouac comes back to Earth after being dead for a long thirteen years. He meets up with his old buddies and discovers just how much his beloved America has changed.

Unfortunately, the book just isn't that good. Rosenthal attempts to imitate Kerouac's spontaneous prose, but fails. He captures the Kerouac cliche quite nicely. It's almost satirical, but that is obviously not the intention. Several of Kerouac's expressions are abused, making it seem as though the writing follows a specific formula.

There are a few moments, however, where something Kerouacian shines through. I really enjoyed some passages. In many parts, this book consists of good writing. Unfortunately, all of those parts are when the author stops imitating for a moment and just sees things through his character's eyes.

In the end, I don't know if I'd recommend this book or not. The Beat Literature fan in me was disgusted. I felt the book did Kerouac no justice. It was kind of amusing, however, to read about Kerouac and Corso in Disneyland. It was also entertaining to entertain the thought of William Burroughs letting this Kerouac reincarnation shoot an apple off of HIS head.

Read it, but don't expect too much.