Charles Plymell is associated with Beat Generation writers for several reasons: he lived with Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady in San Francisco in the early 1960s; he admired and was influenced by much of the Beat writing: his work was published in Beat journals and by Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Books. As an editor and publisher, he has, in turn, published many Beat figures, such as Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Herbert Huncke. On the other hand, it is important to recognize some of the differences between Plymell and the Beats: he is quite a bit younger than the main Beat writers; he has lived in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco under what he calls "Hippie Movement conditions"; and he has in recent years been moving away from Beat influences, often criticizing what he considers bad writing and corrupt politics emerging from some Beats who continue writing...