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 enlarge | Author: Eddy Joe Cotton
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $12.00
Buy Used: $4.24
You Save: $7.76 (65%)
New (2) Used (17) Collectible (1) from $4.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  31 reviews
Sales Rank: 444988
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 1400048095
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9781400048090
ASIN: 1400048095
Publication Date: May 27, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: creases in cover, ships fast!
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| Customer Reviews:
 A life on the tracks May 3, 2005
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
Wow...this is a good read if yer into the desolation road; an open-ended, lop-sided thin line that's easy to fall off and harder to leave once you got yer groove. Eddy Joe Cotton is Kerouac and Cassidy balled up and the road is iron and wood.
An excellant, funny, and simple memoir July 24, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
While many people criticize Cotton for his work, I find it to be an extremely funny and personal account of a young, somewhat cynical but always grounded, man who has one helluva journey. Too often the status quo in exactly how to write this or write that get in the way of a darn good story. This is a piece that will make you think and make you laugh. It is the most entertaining piece I've read in years. The author possesses a decidedly patriotic air while illuminating the unique aspects of our American culture. A must read.
 The Vulgar is Often Profound April 16, 2004
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Cotton sets out on a literal journey by freight train only to realise along the way that it was worthless without its complimentary and parallel, the figurative journey. In this way it resembles Kerouac's tireless hope, a faith in the future. But Kerouac died drunk young, and ON THE ROAD is a pipe dream, a sad book where there is no resolution, where Neal Cassady is found out a man, not a hero. Where Kerouac has Cassady, Cotton has the freight train, and no pretense about faith and hope, beatific enlightenment and redemption in the madness of music, women, words and poetry. Cotton's journey is a lonely one, and beneath the crude language there is a timid poet, but more importantly a very lonely young man who chooses not to flee sadness, but to immerse himself in it. In Cotton we find a reaction to the blighted idealism of the sixties generation - a person not contented so much with words and literary, artistic achievement, but concerned with the marriage of his art and action, the substance of his real life. After all, Kerouac never ate out of trash cans... So, let's not make too much of what he lacks in technical training, politcal agenda and ideals. He has no ideals, and thank him for it, that wonderful and rare quality of "hopelessness without despair," and his sense of humor and heart.
One of the most beautiful things you will ever read March 23, 2004
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is not, as some reviewers would have you believe, a juvenile attempt at autobiography, or a ripoff of Kerouac. Neither is it a work that is undeserving of praise, or trite. Instead, the author instills a great deal of poetry and threads it through the years of collective experience he had being homeless. The only thing I wish he had included more material on was the topic of fitting into society, of feeling like he couldn't reintegrate. He was basically on his own at 16 (not nineteen as it says above in the review). I find it both amazing and heartwarming that he finally reached a point in his life where he wanted to finally turn things around, through a literary achievement that tells a very American saga.It's gorgeous prose, and though he skips over time a lot, the stories he tells are both beautifully told and gritty, about people forgotten, or shunned by society, sometimes victims, sometimes insane, sometimes dangerous, sometimes just throwaways. It's a fascinating look at the gypsy culture in this country as well as how people really survive that way. I really recommend it if you're looking for that sort of read. Parts of it are uncomfortable but really, I found it a profound book, with meditations on the American dream and the American reality that was very cutting and nostalgic at the same time. I wouldn't ever welcome that life, the taste of it I've seen is enough, but yeah, his book is very well written. I suppose part of me liked it so much because it didn't shy away from talking about the things that make America exactly the hazardous place it is, and why. He really exposes a great number of things that make you go "wow, I am so glad I wasn't there to see this in person". Especially given what the current administration idealizes, this book is a perfect antidote for the person willing to say America is the best country on earth. This book is a wake up call to the people who tout the "no child left behind" act, and the lack of insight that is our system, one that constantly, irrecovably overlooks.
Freedom! November 10, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Young bum-in-training Eddy Joe Cotton takes us along on his journey to freedom, riding the rails, scrounging for food in trash cans, freezing in boxcars, staring out at deserts and fields of grain for days at a time, and of course meeting fellow travellers. You never know what filthy old bum you will run into at a hobo gathering or what words of wisdom you will glean in between slugs of cheap wine. Filthy dirty? Yes - but free! Going noplace? Yes - but free! Picking through half smoked cigarette butts in order to roll your own? Yes - but free! Free, free, free! Well, if that's your idea of a good life, welcome to it. This book actually was pretty entertaining and informative. It does seem like a carefree, if uncomfortable, way of living, and nothing terribly bad seemed to happen to the author. There are also plenty of women who take an interest in this sort, though none of them stick around for long, having issues of their own. Good luck, Eddy Joe Cotton, I'll be thinking of you every time I hear the train whistle in the distance at night.
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