Memoirs of a Beatnik by Diane Di Prima.

"Long regarded as an underground classic for its gritty and unabashedly erotic portrayal of bohemian New York in the 1950s, Memoirs of a Beatnik is a moving account of a young artist coming of age sensually and intellectually. Written as fiction, the book grew out of di Prima's own experiences as a bold and independent woman who dropped out of Swarthmore in 1953, at age eighteen, in order to write. It evokes the heady work of cafes and jazz clubs, poets and artists, out of which the Beat movement emerged, and offers a fascinating narrative about the courage and triumphs of the imagination, written by a young woman who raised her rebellion into art."