Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 170
Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
978-1-4422-7324-5 • Hardback • September 2016 • $104.00 • (£80.00)
978-1-4422-7325-2 • eBook • September 2016 • $98.50 • (£76.00)
Michael J. Prince is associate professor of American literature and culture at the University of Agder in Kristriansand, Norway. He is the author of Myth Making Man: Myths of Human Evolution in the Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick, Doris Lessing and Octavia Butler (2010).
This work taps into the growing interest in the Beats as expressed through film. Prince is thorough for the most part. He works forward from the rather calamitous 1960 film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's The Subterraneans, released two years after the publication of the novel, with the change of the role of Mardou Fox from African American to French. Prince then delves into films such as Heart Beat (1980) and Naked Lunch (1991), providing a clear vision of their place within the contours of Beat adaptations, before turning to the recent spate of films that have brought Kerouac and company to life. Here, too, the author’s examination is comprehensive….
Summing Up:Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.
— Choice Reviews