AN OVERVIEW

Salem Chesterfield was born at an early age in Coagulation, Illinois on April 1st, 1927, and then again, the day after that. It was a difficult birth. Born to a family of plain croppers, ( they refused to share) his early life was hard. He was introduced to the literature of Elizabethan England early on, but refused to shake its hand, instead concentrating on the early 'Action' and 'Detective' comics!

He left school, ( many many times, always at 2:30 in the afternoon) and joined the Navy, in the mistaken belief that he had signed up to a Turkish Bath club! He was later invalided out of the service for 'Not liking water too well' and drifted to New York. ( By means of a flotation device. He had been stationed in Southampton, England at the time!)

Towards the late 40s, he met the young Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, but having no idea who they were, he totally ignored them in favour of having his picture taken with members of the cast of 'The Lone Ranger'.

By 1947, he was writing, by 1948 he was forming whole words, and by 1949, his literary career was born. Chesterfield, ( real name Winston Marlboro ) first came to light with 'Ode to a Cigarette' in 1949.

 He Caused controversy in 1953 when he accidentally dropped a large slab of concrete on top of 17 of his friends whilst they skinny dipped in the pool. At the time of the 'accident', he was under the influence of a strong dispepsia medicine. This incident was recalled in the 1955 novel, 'The Naked Crunch'. As a result, he was later arrested and incarcerated for two years, during which time he wrote the seminal 'Off The Road'. He suffered grave constipation problems upon his release from prison, events reflected in his last great novel, 'Desolation Anus'.

 Into the 60s, and he became involved in the embryonic hippy movement, but unlike many ideological hippies, he was happy to take corporate sponsorship for many of the events he organised. Thus, the 'Heinz Baked Be-ins' became a fixture around Haight-Asbury in 1966, as were the Beechams Powders Antacid tests of the following year! When LSD and bad writing were both made illegal, Chesterfield moved to England, where he lived quietly in the Lake Disrict for the rest of his life, and also most of everybody elses. His last work, 'Why Do They Talk So Funny Round Here' remains unpublished, as do all his other novels, poems and collected bank statements. He met an untimely end in 1978, choking to death on a host of golden daffodils, not far from Wordswoth's 'Dove' cottage!

Salem Chesterfield, beat generation novelist, never to be forgotten, but never to be remembered either!
 

Bibliography

'Ode To A Cigarette and other Poems' - 1949
'The Naked Crunch' - 1955
'Off The Road' - 1957
'Desolation Anus' - 1960
'The Clockwork Rootbeer Arithmatic Test' - 1965
'Sometimes a Great Lotion - The Johnson's Baby Story' - 1970
'Lady Windermere's Lake' - 1972
'WHy Do They Talk So Funny Round Here' - 1975

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