IN PRINT AT LAST!!!! For the first time in over 60 years!!!

Rating:

First off, the release of this book is nothing short of a literary event: two literary icons known for their convention breaking novels collaborating in fiction and basing their book on a real life murder that happened within their circle of friends. "...HIPPOS..." is not as amazing as Kerouac publicly recalled it being, nor is it really the "minor work" that Burroughs dismissed it as. 64 years after it was written, this book takes on a new importance outside of it's literary merits. The work is instantly fascinating to me (as I think it will be to any fans of these writers) because it is an important early step in these artist's development. We can really get a sense of the early Beats relationships in the book, their wild energy and their literary fascinations.

Kerouac and Burroughs wrote this book from two points of view. The Kerouac is the character Mike Ryko and Burroughs character is Will Dennison. For those of you aquainted with the circle of the Beats, Lucien Carr is the character Philip Tourian, David Kammerer is Al Ramsay, Edie Parker is Janie and Celine Young is Barbara....and so on.

A note to the Kerouac fans....This was written before TOWN & THE CITY and has neither TCs sweeping Wolfean images or ON THE ROAD's spontanious bop prose. One can barely detect Jack's love for words in this book. His writing at times is a little whispy (which hints at his Wolfean tastes) but Jack never dives into the full breadth of nostalgia of which all Kerouac fans know he's capable. His writing is more clipped and economic. In fact one can imagine William Burroughs looking over Jack's pages and telling him, "Less literary, deary" In a rare moment of abandon, Jack does let his character Mike Ryko recount (at length) his wild experiences at sea but that monologue goes on a bit too long and disrupts the clipped flow of what is essentially a dime store crime novel.

Bill's pages resemble his later though commonly dubbed "first book", JUNKY - a novel which I very much enjoyed for the same reason as I enjoyed this. It's early Burroughs, who writes his prose like an anthropologist or a police officer writes on his notepad, "Just the facts"
****But one should keep in mind when reading this book that THESE ARE NOT THE FACTS about what happened with the Carr/Kammerer murder case. Jack and Bill are intentionally creating fictionalized account. Their creative embellishments sometimes reveal their personal interests or preoccupations so it becomes hard to decipher what in the book is fact and what is fiction - much like most of Jack's novels.

Critical Readers Be Warned: I think the reader should curve their expectations accordingly, with respect to the writers youth and inexperience. Though indeed an interesting work, "...Hippos.." is not in the vein of their groundbreaking work. it's a good and quick read, though the book ends abruptly. It seems that Kerouac and Burroughs either lost interest in writing it or were discouraged by Lucien's wishes for them not to continue the book. It was due to Lucien's influence that the book has remained so long out of the public's hands for 60 years. It was only published after Lucien passed in 2005 - RIP.

If it's facts about the real events you want I'd suggest reading one of the many Kerouac or Burroughs biographies available - though many have contradicting information. It should be mentioned that James Grauerholtz's Afterward for the book will be quite helpful for those unaware of the true facts of the case. And we should all give a big thank you to Mr. Grauerholtz, executive of the Burroughs estate for publishing this book at long last. It really is a gift.