As he travels across 1950s America, aspiring writer Sal Paradise chronicles his escapades with the charismatic Dena Moriarty. Sal admires Dean's passion for experiencing as much as possible of life and his wild flights of poetic fancy. Sal and Dean embark on an odyssey of drugs, sex, jazz, mystical philosophy, and new experiences as they travel through 1950s underground America.

"Now a major motion picture"--cover.\ "First published in the United States of America by the Viking Press Inc., 1957"--T.p. verso. "Now a major motion picture"--cover.