The Subterraneans. Jack Kerouac

Leo Persepierre, a budding writer and self-proclaimed drifter, is drawn to the basement people—the impoverished intellectuals who populate the bars of San Francisco. One of them is Mardu Fox, a beautiful and slightly crazy young woman whose dark, suffering, and tender eyes threaten to captivate him completely. However, as their relationship grows closer, Leo is terrified, and he sets out to destroy their love. Written in just three days, the short novel The Basement, like all of Kerouac’s writings, is closely intertwined with his own life while embodying his grand vision of America.

Although the novel was written in 1953, it was not published until 1958, a year after the resounding success of On the Road, which opened Kerouac's access to mainstream publishing houses and a wide readership, thereby enabling the publication of previously written texts.