Yes. I was an active alcoholic through my 20s and after sobering up, I read On the Road. So much of it seemed to me to be about the mythology of freedom.
NEWS: 29 - Sep - 2017
My book is now in selected stores and can also be bought online.
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On the Wagon by Lennox Nicholson
Price: $24.99 AUD. Available Paperbook Orders Here, and on Amazon Languages: English. Published 1 - Aug - 2017.
Jack Kerouac’s On the Road helped to define freedom for a generation. But when a young recovering alcoholic turned to the Beat classic for inspiration, he saw more warning signs and wreckages than enlightenment and self-discovery. Was that really freedom?. Our Reader Rating ?/?.
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Biography
Lennox Nicholson arrived at the end of his twenties with a desk full of unfinished stories, synopses, screenplays and a severe drinking and drug problem. Sobering up, he completed a Bachelor of Writing & Publishing at NMIT and an internship with Affirm Press. He lives in Melbourne, with no pets, no kids and no hangovers.
Lennox Nicholson
What is your story, John?
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Yes. I was an active alcoholic through my 20s and after sobering up, I read On the Road. So much of it seemed to me to be about the mythology of freedom. It struck me that Jack Kerouac sounded a lot like people I knew in their drinking days, including myself. If Kerouac was so "free", how come he was dead at 47 of alcoholism? I don't think he was free at all. I started to wonder what he was looking for, and started getting suspicious that it wasn't out there – that he never found it.
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A lot of us have total external freedom but are imprisoned internally. We can't try things we want to try, we won't do things we want to do. We're imprisoned by our own fears, we have trouble getting free from what's going on between our ears. Nelson Mandela was in prison but seemed very free mentally, spiritually. In the Western world, if I've learnt anything, it's that freedom is more of an internal thing. Freedom from the bondage of self.
Contact Me
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I can be contacted easily through social media.
