Collected Letters, 1944-1967

Neal Cassady was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on February 8, 1926. He was raised by an alcoholic father in skid row hotels and spent time in reform schools and juvenile prisons. While visiting a friend in New York in December 1946, he met Jack Kerouac and Allen S. Ginsberg. Together they would become part of the Beat movement. Cassady appeared as a main character in several books including Go by John Clellon Holmes, On the Road by Kerouac, and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. After a night of hard partying in Mexico, Cassady wandered onto a deserted railroad, intending to walk fifteen miles to the next town. It was a cold rainy night and he fell asleep on the way wearing only a t-shirt and jeans. He was found beside the tracks the next morning in a coma and died on February 4, 1968. He never published a book during his life, but his unfinished autobiography was published as The First Third and Other Writings after his death.

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