Born January 9, 1915 and raised in Chicago, Herbert Huncke was a street hustler and drug addict who lived the lifestyle described by Jack Black (author) in his autobiography You Can't Win. The book -- and Huncke's life -- was centered around living as an outlaw hobo, jumping trains across the vast expanse of the United States, bonding through a shared destitution and comradery with other hoboes of all walks of life.
Huncke difted to New York City around 1945, and resided in the Lower East Side. At this point Huncke's regular haunts were 42nd street and Times Square, where he associated with prostitutes and sailors. It was around this time when he met then-unknown writer William S. Burroughs.
It is through Huncke that Burroughs was first exposed to jive talk and morphine -- elements that would become central to Burroughs' writing. Huncke himself was a natural storyteller, a unique character with a paradoxically honest take on life. Later, after the formation of the so-called Beat Generation, members of the Beats encouraged Huncke to write -- which he did with limited success. Huncke used the phrase 'Beat' to describe someone living roughly, with no money and few prospects. Huncke was considered to have coined the phrase that eventually came to describe an entire generation. Jack Kerouac later insisted that 'Beat' was derived from beatification, to be supremely happy. However, it is thought that this definition was a defense of the beat way of life, which was frowned upon and offended many American sensibilities.
Huncke died August 8, 1996. He had been living for a number of years in the Chelsea Hotel in New York City.
Works
- (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1990), ISBN 1557780447.
- The Evening Sun Turned Crimson (Cherry Valley, NY: Cherry Valley Editions, 1980), ISBN 0916156435.
- Huncke's Journal (Poets Press, 1965). Out of Print.
- The Herbert Huncke Reader (New York: Morrow, 1997), ISBN 068815266X. (Includes the complete texts of The Evening Sun Turned Crimson and Huncke's Journal ).
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