[Dear Carolyn, Letters to Carolyn Cassady] spans the decade from 1952 to 1962. The first letter, June 3, 1952, sings the praises of the cheap life in Mexico, and is loaded with amazing prices for luxuries like Filet Mignon and full of advice for Carolyn about her relationship with the man Kerouac helped make a legend…. The final letter is full of writing, his writing, Neal's writing, and laden with the disgust and discouragement that came of what he calls "being insulted by critics" and written off by his family. It contains the defiant bragadoccio with which he countered despair: "… I have written the greatest prose in America since Melville, and the greatest English prose since Joyce and William Shakespeare." In between these two samples are tucked as much gossip, as many of the details of this extraordinary and public affection, as much serious talk about writing and literature in America as...