This book investigates the cultural construction of immediacy in Beat writing. It places an expanded canon of Beat writers in an early postmodern context that highlights their importance in American poetics and outlines the effects of gender and race on Beat writing in the postwar years. Mortenson argues that Beat writers focused on action, desire, and spontaneity to establish an authentic connection to the world around them. He challenges the stereotype of the Beats as simply timeless hipsters by demonstrating their importance to our understanding of the changes occurring in America in the middle of the twentieth century.--[book cover]