Gerald Nicosia is a seeker in the truest definition of the word. Known primarily as the author of Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac, the finest biography to date on the legendary Beat Generation writer, and Home to War, the epic volume about the Vietnam War and its effects on its returning veterans, Nicosia appears to be on a lifelong journey to understanding how an arc of time fits into a huge historical human epoch, and he has undertaken this journey with sensitivity and intelligence, with considerable dosages of raging opinion, doubt and clear-eyed vision necessary to focus on complex issues seen through the lens of everyday existence.
His latest book, Night Train to Shanghai And Other Memories of China, his fourth collection of poetry, is a wonderful artifact of a fascinating mental landscape—a deeply personal examination of an American in a land so often viewed to be mysterious and somehow troubling, if not menacing. Nicosia’s writing captures the people, objects and everyday life in a manner that examines the similarities of Eastern and Western cultures while celebrating the diverse cultural differences in ways that give meaning to a land we, as Americans, cannot begin to understand.
