David J. Krajicek writes that 68 years ago, Lucien Carr, “the Beat Generation’s charismatic, callow swami, buried a knife in the heart of David Kammerer, 33, his besotted, dauntless hometown stalker.” It was an act that “served as an emotional fulcrum for the group a decade before Kerouac, Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs published their seminal works.”
Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac were students at Columbia University, which played a critical role in the tortured-soul narrative that the Beats yearned for.