Tripping with a Viper author Anne Marie Maxwell (aka Anne Murphy, as she was known in the 1950s and 1960s) tells her autobiographical story of her adventures as a longtime lover and romantic, travel partner of Beat icon Neal Cassady Òwithout fiction, facelifting or varnish, just as IÕve sometimes painfully and often gratefully recalled it,Ó says Maxwell. Her writing traverses many roads of America (and beyond) with this Òunexpurgated, true story of Neal Cassady and Anne Murphy.Ó It journeys further past the facade of pop culture fascination and excitement galvanized by Beat Generation writers, artists and poets. Her first-person account enters a zone of struggle through the consequences and detriments accrued for a non-conformist life lived devoid of limitations. For the first time, MaxwellÕs memoir is brought to the publishing world for a new generation of readers to explore. It is one of the most important accounts of the female perspective of the Beat Generation as a counterbalance to the otherwise overrepresented male-driven narrative. Anne Marie Maxwell is no longer just a spoke from Neal CassadyÕs wheel of influence and inspiration. This first, fully published edition, gives her back her long-lost voice and is a testament to her intellectual, spiritual and sexual powers.
ÑDaniel Yaryan, publisher, Mystic Boxing Commission
ÒWhen I first discovered Anne Marie MaxwellÕs manuscriptÉI was blown away. Here was the missing link to the Beats. And from the viewpoint of a bright, adventurous, beleaguered woman who was on the road all the way with Beat muse Neal Cassady in his later years. Born near his birthday she is a parallel character, with her lust for life and antisocial forays onto AmericaÕs late Beat bywaysÉAnneÕs is a quintessential womanÕs story; that of a sensuous Aphrodite pioneer who made it policy never to say no, to sex, drugs or artistic experience.Ó
ÑLynn Rogers, M.A., author of Born in Berkeley and Where the Flowers Have Gone