Paradise Outlaws: Remembering the Beats [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

by John Tytell (Author), Tytell John (Editor, Photographer)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Tytell's Naked Angels (LJ 4/15/76) remains the best introduction to Beat writers and their work. His latest effort, a unique blend of critical analysis and personal reminiscence, evaluates the Beat Generation's place in American literature, stressing the movement's celebration of the individual and its distrust of established authority. A perceptive critic, Tytell is especially good at documenting the Beat Generation's influence on contemporary popular culture. Some 45 photographs taken by Mellon, Tytell's wife, enhance the text. Each photo is accompanied by a page or two of commentary. An essay on Tytell's experience teaching the Beats rounds out the volume. This engaging look at the Beat Generation will be of most interest to readers already familiar with the works of William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac. Highly recommended.AWilliam Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Tytell, author most recently of The Living Theater (1995), taught literature at Queens College for several decades and was one of the first critics to recognize the significance of the Beat vision and style. His passion led to camaraderie with the movement's key figures, granting Tytell the inside knowledge that shapes the essays collected in this engagingly casual yet knowledgeable and insightful volume. Tytell swings from critical literary assessments and social commentary to biographical profiles, which are accompanied by candid photographs taken by Mellon, a well-published photographer who just so happens to be married to the author. This may sound cloying, but instead the union of the personal with the journalistic and scholarly strikes just the right tone for analyses of Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Herbert Huncke (the "incarnate underground man"), Ken Kesey, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, and Robert Frank. And Tytell's tracing of the evolution of critical and popular response to the Beats, from disdain to appreciation, reflects their profound influence. Donna Seaman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company; 1st edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688164439
• ISBN-13: 978-0688164430
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,429,143 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inviting the Beat family over for a Blast, November 1, 1999

By	Karmacoupe (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

The good thing about this book is that it's neither a thick boring pedantic tome, nor a fluffy coffeetable picture book. The photographs are personal and real like a family album with a great photographer in the house. And then there's the text which I liked because even though I'm pretty familiar with the subject matter, Tytell's one of those encyclopedic professor types that can retain all these different facts at once and then weave them in together. Like that Larry Rivers lived on West 21st, and would hear Bill Cannastra's parties on West 20th and go over, and that's where Rivers joined up with Jack and Allen for the first time - in the very apt. where Jack would soon write On The Road. There are all of these interesting little details sprinkled in with a friendly big picture take, coincidently framed by all the pictures Mellon took. There's Cherry Valley in the 70's, Boulder in 82, and NYC in the mid-to-late-90's that really gives you a great perspective on the gang growing up. Yeah - perspective - that's what this has - great perspective! Read on!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Naked Angels Revisited, January 3, 2002

By	MyComa - See all my reviews

As much time as John Tytell has spent with Beat writers and artists, it is understandable that he would return to the topic twenty years after first publishing Naked Angels. That book is one of the best early references on the lives and works of Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs--fully informed by Tytell's scholarly research and interviews with Beat figures. If there is one criticism of Naked Angels, it is that the book has begun to show its age as more and more important biographical and critical discoveries are made regarding the Beats (for instance, Kerouac's letters and journals--and the publication of Some of the Dharma). With Paradise Outlaws, Tytell has taken the opportunity to update--and in some cases expand on--his work in Naked Angels. The result is something of a companion to the first book, with the Kerouac-Ginsberg-Burroughs sections shortened substantially and the academic tone removed. Tytell compliments this approach with first-hand accounts of his relationships with Beat figures (accompanied by photographs by his wife, Mellon). By doing this, he has created a personal book, a "My Life With and Studying the Beats." It is a unique perspective that stands out in the current glut of Beat books.

Tytell's first-person, casual writing gives Paradise Outlaws the feel of a conversation more than a lecture. With this in mind, the book should not be read as a critical study of the Beats, rather as an oral history. (Tytell even recommends Jack's Book: an oral biography by Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee to reinforce his approach.) While it seems, at times, that Tytell and Mellon tossed in photographs for no reason and tried to make them fit with the Beat theme, it's hard to find fault considering the book is based on Tytell's own experiences and opinions. Who's to argue if he thinks the "Rainbow Family" is a descendent of Beat culture?

Finally, Tytell concludes the book with a fantastic section on pedagogy. References to and recommendations of source material from a Beat student with the experience and knowledge of Tytell should be taken seriously. My only complaint is that his final section--the Beats influence on pop culture--is typically narrow. All the allusions to punk music reminded me of The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats. Tytell, of all people, should give the Beats more credit for their influence and dig a little deeper into the social fabric to find the true cultural legacy of the Beats. But this is a small criticism of a book that belongs on the shelf of any person who has found themselves captured by the humanity and personal nature of the Beats. Tytell's book would make his Beat friends proud.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating the Beats in the American Night, October 17, 1999

By	John Rocco ([e-mail]) "zubov44" (New York) - See all my reviews

Beat scholar John Tytell first covered the Beats in 1976's seminal "Naked Angels," one of the first books to take the Beats seriously as a literary movement. Tytell's new book, "Paradise Outlaws," continues his vibrant work on Beat words and Beat life with a Beat lesson: it is life itself which gives literature its pulsating heart. The Beats took this as a credo and they confessed their lives, loves, sins, and visions throughout their work. "Paradise Outlaws" follows in this tradition by mixing Tytell's life with his book: part literary criticism, part memoir, this vitally important additon to our thinking about the Beats weighs their impact on American culture at the same time it describes Tytell's own interation with the Beats as Beat teacher, critic, and friend. "Paradise Outlaws" is also packed with stunning photos of the Beats by Mellon, whose loving camera eye catches the Beats in frozen time as Tytell's prose thaws them out. This is a book that will prove to change how we read and think about one of the most important literary movements America has ever had.