About the Author

John Arthur Maynard is a historian who lives in Simi Valley in southern California.

Reviews

In the late 1950s, Venice was southern California's answer to Greenwich Village and North Beach. Maynard interweaves the bohemian colony's history with the lives of its two most prominent literary denizens: Stuart Perkoff and Lawrence Lipton. Perkoff, the quintessential beat poet, lived simply, took drugs, and was dedicated to his muse. Lipton, despite his rabid rejection of materialism, seemed doomed to become its victim. His book, The Holy Barbarians , brought a wave of publicity that all but drowned the real concerns of the beat movement, shifting the focus of attention from beats to beatniks. Maynard's book, begun as a dissertation, is meticulously researched and a pleasure to read. A major work on bohemianism, this is highly recommended.-- William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY