The year is nineteen-sixty-something, and after endless millennia of watery sleep, the stars are finally right. Old R'lyeh rises out of the Pacific, ready to cast its damned shadow over the primitive human world. The first to see its peaks: an alcoholic, paranoid, and frightened Jack Kerouac, who had been drinking off a nervous breakdown up in Big Sur. Now Jack must get back on the road to find Neal Cassady, the holy fool whose rambling letters hint of a world brought to its knees in worship of the Elder God Cthulhu. Together with pistol-packin' junkie William S. Burroughs, Jack and Neal make their way across the continent to face down the murderous Lovecraftian cult that has spread its darkness to the heart of the American Dream. But is Neal along for the ride to help save the world, or does he want to destroy it just so that he'll have an ending for his book? "It's Kerouac vs. Cthulhu as the most human of writers tangles with the most inhuman horror. Move Under Ground is a wild, weird ride, and Nick Mamatas shows awesome chops as well as some sad and funky soul." - Stewart O'Nan, author of The Night Country and A Prayer for the Dying. "An intense, inspired crossbred bastard homage-cum-critique-cum-vision." - China Mieville, author of The Scar and Iron Council. "Nick's style is wickedly satirical.... His writing has bite, but it also has meaning." - The Green Man Review "Nick Mamatas is one of the liveliest and most exciting new writers around." - Thomas Beller, author of The Sleep-Over Artist "Mamatas's fiction showcases his sense of humor and fiery imagination" - Rain Taxi Review Of Books
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From Publishers Weekly
The American dream reveals itself to be a Lovecraftian nightmare in Mamatas's audacious first novel, set in the early 1960s, which goes on the road with Kerouac, Cassaday and Cthulhu. Jack Kerouac is in California when he receives cryptic letters from soulmate and muse Neal Cassaday, whose hallucinatory ramblings evoke "the Dark Dreamer" (aka Cthulhu), the Lovecraftian deity of cosmic entropy whom Jack blames for the era's stultifying forces of conformity, commercialism and complacency. After Jack rescues Neal from his new life as a gas station owner in Nevada, the two reverse the steps of their earlier westward trek, fighting skirmishes with "the Cult of Utter Normalcy" that serves the god, en route to a climactic showdown in New York City. The book has no more plot than Kerouac's On the Road, but the author makes Jack and Neal's surreal adventures in middle America seem the perfect expression of Lovecraft's mind-blasting horrors. He gives quaint cameos to Allen Ginsburg as a sewer-trolling prophet and William S. Burroughs as a god-swatting exterminator extraordinaire. He also manages a credible pastiche of Kerouac's visionary prose, as in this description of Manhattan: "The heart of the world, concrete and fleshy, green money pouring in and out from every corner of earth through arteries of commerce and culture, all choked up and poisoned with the madness of dead gods' dreams." Though Lovecraft reduxes are common in horror, few show the wit and energy of this original effort.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
In this tour de force, which is Mamatas' first novel, the Beats meet the elder gods of H. P. Lovecraft, and a harrowing time is had by all. It's the early sixties, and Jack Kerouac is hiding from his public in Big Sur, enjoying the company of a Hindu deity in the form of a redhead he calls Marie and waiting for word from Neal Cassady, his and many another Beat's charismatic hero. Word he gets, including some babbling on about the Old Ones rising out of the Pacific and sweeping across America. That sets Jack off in search of Neal and, with Neal and eventually Bill Burroughs, on a cross-country jaunt just ahead, or behind, the advancing dark tide of the Old Ones. Destination: Mannahatta, where the since-separated Jack and Neal have a showdown--with each other! Mamatas virtuosically parodies Kerouac's pell-mell On the Road style, but Burroughs' Naked Lunch and Exterminator, minus the outre sex, are more obvious templates for this wild, weird, woolly romp. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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I was in Big Sur hiding from my public when I fi-nally heard from Neal again. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I was in Big Sur hiding from my public when I fi-nally heard from Neal again. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I have several complaints about this book.
First, its dimensions are entirely Euclidean. The thing doesn't fit on any of my bookshelves. I've ordered my gibbering servants to get me one from Ikea, but I'm having a heck of a time putting it together.
Second, I don't like the fact that I'm made into a kind of allegory for conformity and the alienating effects of late capitalism on the middle class. I've always thought of myself as either an old hippie or, perhaps, an ancien regime man of leisure. Think about it -- all I do is sleep and dream.
That said, Mamatas effortlessly nails Kerouac's style without limiting himself -- which is great fun. There's eldritch kung-fu a-plenty, and horrible, unforgettable passages that will blast you out of complacency with their blasphemous, marxist terror.
I wish I could write a book but my giant hands crush typewriters.
-Cth.
Format:Hardcover
I enjoyed the hell out of this book. I've liked just about everything I've read by Nick Mamatas, so it came as no surprise to me how accomplished this novel was. Emotional, moving, and wickedly intelligent. You don't even have to be familiar with Kerouac or the Beats to get into it, so don't let that stop you. Read it now, or you risk becoming a mindless, clacking beetleman.
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book on the recommendation of a friend. We are no longer friends. (Kidding .... but this book was really pretty lame.) It's written in a way that is too self-consciously cool, and unlike an homage to the beat authors it was just derivative. I strongly urge you to check this book out at the library or read excerpts before shelling out the bucks. I sure wish I'd done that.
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Kerouac vs Cthulu
"Move Under Ground" by Nick Mamatas tells the story of the last, great adventure of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassidy, and William S. Read more
Published on Jun 21 2004 by Harmonyfb
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read this. Now.
In lesser hands the premise of Jack Kerouac meets Cthulhu would be just that, a premise, a one trick pony with nothing to see. Not the case here. Read more
Published on Jun 12 2004 by Paul Tremblay
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