Chapter 1 & 2 Summary

Big Sur is the story of the adventures and misadventures of Jack Kerouac over a summer he was invited to spend secluded in a California cabin to recuperate from a life overtaken by drinking and parties. He spends three restorative weeks there before becoming despondent and thinking he needs people again and then sets in motion a whole string of weeks of drinking and traveling back and forth from San Francisco to the cabin at Big Sur, culminating in his first experience of alcohol-induced madness.

The story opens with Kerouac's description of his state when he set out on his journey to the cabin. He was to have departed in secret to a hotel and used an alias when he called his friend Lorenzo Monsanto to come and pick him up. Instead, he arrives drunk and boisterous to Monsanto's bookstore, is recognized by...