American Smoke: Journeys to the End of the Light

Description

On the trail of the American Beats, Iain Sinclair makes a delirious and perhaps ill-fated expedition in the footsteps of Malcolm Lowry, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Charles Olson and Gary Snyder. In American Smoke, Iain Sinclair hits the road to America in the tracks of the Beats. On the trail of the American Beats, Iain Sinclair makes a delirious and perhaps ill-fated expedition in the footsteps of Malcolm Lowry, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Charles Olson and Gary Snyder. It is a journey in search of literary ghosts behind mirages of volcanoes and the Old West. In which rumours vie with false memories and unreliable reports to steer our guide from one strange adventure into another. It is an odyssey in which the beginning offers no clues as to where it may end. 'A transatlantic odyssey . . . grippingly haunted' Observer 'A challenging, maddening, fascinating journey . . . enjoy Sinclair's poetic language and subtly warped sense of humour. Rich and engrossing' Metro 'Sit back and feel the invigorating pulse of beautifully crafted prose . . . wonderful' Daily Telegraph 'Iain Sinclair has gone from cult author to national treasure' Robert Macfarlane Iain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk.

Iain Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. He is the author of numerous works of fiction, poetry non-fiction, including Lud Heat; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Downriver; Radon Daughters; Lights Out for the Territory; Rodinsky's Room, with Rachel Lichtenstein; Landor's Tower; London Orbital; Dining On Stones; Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk; American Smoke and London Overground. Downriver won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award. He lives in Hackney, east London.

His voice is still urgent. If we know what's good for us, we'll listen * Financial Times * Sinclair's is a prolix poetics, an amassing of noun-hives whose compacted wit would make the most lexically dexterous rapper envious * Observer * To overlook Sinclair is to ignore one of the most distinctive voices in Britain * GQ * One of the finest writers alive -- Alan Moore London's own poet laureate * Time Out *