The settings in which the formative events of the Beat Generation took place included coffeehouses, bars, colleges, and nightclubs of New York City and San Francisco. These were the establishments where students—aspiring artists, poets, and writers—from Columbia University, the University of California at Berkeley, Portland’s Reed College, and North Carolina’s Black Mountain College gathered to meet other writers and artists, formulating the ideas and philosophies that would form the basis of the post-World War II American countercultural landscape. It was in such intimate venues as the San Remo bar, the Peace Eye Bookstore, and St. Mark’s Church in New York City, as well as the Cellar Bar, the Coffee Gallery, the Poetry Center, and the City Lights Bookstore in the North Beach section of...