"The Beat Hotel has been closed for nearly forty years. But for a brief period - from just after the publication of Howl in 1957 until the building was sold in 1963 - it was home to Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Brion Gysin, Peter Orlovsky, Harold Norse, and a host of other luminaries of the Beat Generation. Now, Barry Miles - acclaimed author of many books on the Beats and a personal acquaintance of many of them - vividly excavates this remarkable period and restores it to a historical picture that has, until now, been skewed in favor of the two coasts of America. " "A cheap rooming house on the bohemian Left Bank, the hotel was inhabited mostly by writers and artists, and its communal atmosphere spurred the Beats to incredible heights of creativity. "--BOOK JACKET.