The Story Archive

Tristessa

Jack Kerouac · 1960 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Contemporary

In a Mexico City room shared with a hen, a dove and a sick cat, a morphine-addicted prostitute keeps her saints and her needle on the same shelf, and the American who loves her cannot tell whether he wants her or wants to save her. He goes north for a year and comes back to find the household further down than he left it. Kerouac's shortest book is a Buddhist and Catholic meditation on desire wearing the clothes of a love affair.

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