Author Holmes, Who Defined ‘Beat Generation,’ Dies at 62

Writer John Clellon Holmes, who coined the term “beat” to describe the literary and social rebels of the Beat Generation following World War II, has died of cancer, it was learned today. He was 62.

Holmes wrote of the “beat” life style in “Go,” his first novel in 1952.

A companion of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs in New York after World War II, he came up with the term “beat” to describe the negative reaction of young people to the “gray flannel suit mentality” of mainstream American society in the postwar years.

After his first novel, he wrote more about the “beat” life style in “Nothing More to Declare,” published in 1967. Some critics regard it as the definitive chronicle of the Beat Generation.

The writings of Holmes, Kerouac and other beat writers had a profound influence on young people in the 1960s. A pacifist who viewed violence and fanaticism “as the enemies of life,” Holmes supported the nonviolent opposition to the war in Vietnam.

But Holmes was critical of the hippies and the “fad culture” of the time, which he said was characterized by “a feeling of helplessness.”