DECEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Ethan Hawke doesn't just give a stellar performance. He delivers a living embodiment of Kerouac's work, sustaining a quality that’s consistently startling. This is no small feat as Kerouac’s audiobook features his legendary free-flowing stream of consciousness, following no reliable path. Hawke's confident performance is an anchor. Kerouac, weary of constant attention after his earlier works helped inspire the Beat Generation spirit of the 1950s, seeks solitude in coastal California. However, his alcoholism can't be escaped. As the story progresses, we hear a shift in tone, possibly a form of paranoia. Hawke's skill here is to project this work as a kind of a sustained open mic—his highs and lows among and between the words are like waves crashing on the rocks. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
From the Publisher
"In many ways, particularly in the lyrical immediacy that is his distinctive glory, this is Kerouac's best book . . . certainly, he has never displayed more 'gentle sweetness.'"
—San Francisco Chronicle
"Kerouac's grittiest novel to date and the one which will be read with most respect by those skeptical of all the Beat business in the first place."
—The New York Times Book Review
"Big Sur is so devastatingly honest and painful and yet so beautifully written....He was sharing his pain and suffering with the reader in the same way Dostoyevsky did, with the idea of salvation through suffering."
—David Amram
DECEMBER 2020 - AudioFile
Ethan Hawke doesn't just give a stellar performance. He delivers a living embodiment of Kerouac's work, sustaining a quality that’s consistently startling. This is no small feat as Kerouac’s audiobook features his legendary free-flowing stream of consciousness, following no reliable path. Hawke's confident performance is an anchor. Kerouac, weary of constant attention after his earlier works helped inspire the Beat Generation spirit of the 1950s, seeks solitude in coastal California. However, his alcoholism can't be escaped. As the story progresses, we hear a shift in tone, possibly a form of paranoia. Hawke's skill here is to project this work as a kind of a sustained open mic—his highs and lows among and between the words are like waves crashing on the rocks. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
