Big Sur by Jack Kerouac

A classic of "beat" literature, Big Sur is one of Kerouac's grittiest and most powerful autobiographical novels. Ravaged by alcoholism in his late thirties, Kerouac makes a last, desparate attempt at sobriety by fleeing his home in New Jersey for the solitude and wild beauty of Big Sur in California. Revisiting old friends such as Neal Cassidy hero of On The Road and reliving the excesses of his glory days, Kerouac begins an inexorable, fatal drift as he becomes unable to separate himself from his persona as "the king of the beats." Ultimately the lure of double bourbons, Manhattans, and scotch, and the drinking fanfare of San Francisco's wild nightlife, overwhelms Kerouac, plunging him ever deeper into the darkness of his addiction.