Jack Kerouac Books

What we have here is the first complete reading of Kerouac's best known work, On the Road, in a performance lasting for more than ten hours. The reader is Tom Parker, of whom I admit to knowing nothing. He turns out an extremely competent reading, and manages to hold the attention and the interest of the listener throughout his entire performance, which is something that the previously issued abridged version by another reader failed to do. To be honest, that reading bored me, an effect which, for a Kerouac text, must be difficult to achieve.

That abridged reading, lasting three hours, obviously omitted two-thirds of the novel. It is annoying when listening for favourite parts of the book to discover that they have been left out. Even the beginning was omitted in that version. With this complete reading by Tom Parker that problem does not occur, and is replaced by the altogether more pleasing phenomenon of hearing passages and details which have been entirely forgotten from previous readings of the book.

What of the voice? For me, no one reads Kerouac better than Kerouac, so I prefer a Kerouac-like voice and phrasing when listening to readings of his work, and for that reason favor Jack's own recordings, as available on the Rhino box-set. As someone once remarked, hearing Kerouac interpret his own work is like hearing music for the first time, after only having had the score to study previously. Allen Ginsberg also performed Kerouac well, as evidenced by his Mexico City Blues and The Dharma Bums recordings. Graham Parker also does well, on his two-cassette reading from Visions of Cody. Although his voice is nothing like Kerouac's, the boundless enthusiasm and energy he employs over-ride any objections I might have had. Another reader who has impressed me with his treatment of a Kerouac text is Lee Ranaldo (of the band Sonic Youth), whose contribution to Rykodisc's "Kerouac - Kicks Joy Darkness" tribute CD was nothing short of brilliant. I'd like to hear Ranaldo read the complete On the Road.

Tom Parker does not sound much like Kerouac, but he reads with an infectious energy, keeping the concentration, and never flagging once during his ten-hour journey. These readings, which come in a handsome library case, would provide ideal companionship during a long trip, and are an enjoyable listening experience to dip into at any time. The same company has also released complete readings of Kerouac's other works, The Dharma Bums, and Big Sur, by the same reader, and should be congratulated for these excellent products.

While there are many labels associated with the group of individuals known as the " Beat Generation", it is hard to ignore the eloquence and unique style of some of its greatest writers . Among these is Jack Kerouac. In his most famous work Kerouac sharply follows the seemingly aimless wanderings of the main character, and by doing so describes the characteristic of a nation. It is not a hard task to find a part of one's self in this novel's cast of characters.
One reason for" On the Road" 's endurance is its ability to capture the emotion and motives of the youth in a war weary nation.

This is definitly one of my favorite Kerouac novels. One of those books I couldn't put down and couldn't stop thinking about it when I was finished. I love the little boy's perspective, it's a really sweet story. Very different subject matter from Kerouac's other writing, but his personality and ability to put the reader in each character's shoes really comes through.

Collected by Michael White, this pocket-sized collection of interview excerpts gleaned from sources dating between 1957 and 1986 sheds ample light on Kerouac's meaning and motivation. Printed in India, the low-production book feels like a samizdat missive from Mao, and readers get plenty of first-person accounts of Kerouac's family history, the mysticism inherent in the Beats, politics and the counterculture, great writers, Kerouac's writing process, jazz, and Buddhism. Sure, much -- if not most -- of this is available in other, longer, more in-depth sources, but for a quick, breezy read -- and one you can pocket for portability -- you can't beat this, the 42nd title in the Hanuman series.

_When I first read this little book I thought that it was primarily Buddhist in essence. When I read it again a while later, I said, no, the spirit of this book is definately Taoist. When I read it next I said, this is a true Gnostic creation- who but a gnostic would have the audacity to compose an original scripture? Of course I was right all along, for this book cuts to the mystic heart of all true paths. This is the teaching that we are all one, for we are all emanations of the one Source, call it the Golden Eternity, the Tao, Spirit, or Self. It could be the "dazzling darkness" of Dionysis. It is the core truth of the one appearing as many that it may come to know itself. This was the unnamed IT that the Beats were waiting for, it is the perennial lesson for all true mystics.

_Oh yes, the book is a small one. perfect books are often like that- take a look at the Tao te Ching....

_A man that can write a book like this doesn't have to hang around this old world too long- he's already paid his dues and learned his lessons. Like Lao Tze it is time to depart, for your work is done, and the decline of the country is painful and tiring to witness....

In my nearly forty years of life, I have never left a book unfinished.

Then I encountered "The Dharma Bums".

I picked up this book hoping for the entertaining and enlightening event that most of the other reviewers had found. Instead, all I got after slogging through nearly eighty pages of Kerouac's rambling and grammatically nightmarish prose, was a headache and the gnawing sensation that I'd been conned.

In all honesty, I don't "get" it. Why all the fuss? While I understand the historical significance of Kerouac and this book (along with "On The Road") to the counter-culture "Beat" movement of the fifties, it simply didn't connect.

The snippets of "Zen" wisdom were very rudimentary and the plot was non-existent. But it was the meandering writing style that made this book an absolutely miserable experience for me.

Perhaps when this book was first published it was a revolutionary piece of literature. Maybe it inspired a whole generation of repressed "Leave It To Beaver" Americans to hop a boxcar and explore the world while exploring their own identities. But it just seemed crude and archaic to me.

This book is perfect for anyone who enjoys traveling, hiking or the idea of freeing themselves from a 9 to 5. It's even better for those who feel all of these things simultaneously. Kerouac writes with a terse honesty and gives the reader so many opportunities to apply meaning to our own lives. He helps us to question our own role not in society, but in the search for ourselves.

This book is a little less dark than most of his other books, and it contains some of his best ideas. The protagonist uses another character, Japhy, to explore ideas of Buddhism (Japhy's zen versus his own version). This is never done in an academic way, but rather in the spirit of the book itself: a free, wandering exploration which does not seek overall resolution.

Kerouac also has a gift for self-degredation. He puts his own character and ideas down in subtle ways and moves on without worry for how it looks. Kerouac seems to write as he lives: without too much worry and always with a song in his heart. At one point Japhy becomes concerned about the protagonist (obviously a Kerouac alter-ego) because he is drinking so much. The pathos here is magnified when we know the biography of Kerouac's life.

This is a must read for people who live in the Northwest. His description of their mountain-climbing is excellent. I will let you find the good quotes on your own.

This is a great example of the Beats' beautifully naive fascination with Buddhism. It is probably in my top 2 or 3 favorite Kerouac books. I would recommend it to anyone who likes the Beats, Poetry, Buddhism, backpacking, simple pleasures, etc.

One of the most often used metaphors for inner growth is the travel journal and I'm sure Kerouac would have enjoyed Gurdjieff's somewhat autobiograhical travel novel "Meetings with Remarkable Men." Has this generation (2007) not yet found it's Dharma Bums? Maybe the line between literature and music is blurring (thanks to Dylan, Bob that is). Where is the excitement of adventure that leaps off the pages of these books stirring an energy to do something now, to seek, to find, to discover!!

I would have every 14-20 year-old in America read Dharma Bums (and Electric Kool Aid Acid Test)... it's up to YOU to put some adventure in YOUR LIFE... IT'S YOUR LIFE!

Following the success of "On the Road", Kerouac's publishers initially rejected his manuscripts such as "The Subterraneans" and "Tristessa." But his publisher asked him to write an accessible, popular novel continuing with the themes of "On the Road." Kerouac responded with "The Dharma Bums" which was published late in 1958. "The Dharma Bums" is more conventionally written that most of Kerouac's other books, with short, generally clear sentences and a story line that is optimistic on the whole. The book was critiqued by Allen Ginsberg and others close to Kerouac as a "travelogue" and as over-sentimentalized. But with the exception of "On the Road", "The Dharma Bums" remains Kerouac's most widely read work. I had the opportunity to reread "The Dharma Bums" and came away from the book deeply moved.

As are all of Kerouac's novels, "The Dharma Bums" is autobiographical. It is based upon Kerouac's life between 1956--1957 -- before "On the Road" appeared and made Kerouac famous. The book focuses upon the relationship between Kerouac, who in the book is called Ray Smith and his friend, the poet Gary Snyder, called Japhy Ryder, ten years Kerouac's junior. Kerouac died in 1969, while Snyder is still alive and a highly regarded poet. Allen Ginsberg (Alvah Goldbrook) and Neal Cassady (Cody Pomeray), among others, also are characters in the book. Most of the book is set in San Francisco and its environs, but there are scenes of Kerouac's restless and extensive travelling by hitchiking, walking, jumping freight trains, and taking buses, as he visits Mexico, and his mother's home in Rocky Mount, North Carolina during the course of the book.

The strenght of "The Dharma Bums" lies in its scenes of spiritual seriousness and meditation. During the period described in the book, Kerouac had become greatly interested in Buddhism. He describes himself as a "bhikku" -- a Buddhist monk -- and had been celibate for a year when the book begins. I have been studying Buddhism myself for many years, and it is easy to underestimate Kerouac's understanding of Buddhism. As with many authors, he was wiser in his writing that he was in his life. There is a sense of the sadness and changeable character of existence and of the value of compassion for all beings that comes through eloquently in "The Dharma Bums." Smith and Ryder have many discussions about Buddhism -- at various levels of seriousness -- during the course of the novel. Ryder tends to use Buddhism to be critical of and alienated from American society and its excessive materialism and devotion to frivolity such as television. Smith has the broader vision and sees compassion and understanding as a necessary part of the lives of everyone. Smith tends to be more meditative and quiet in his Buddhist practice -- he spends a great deal of time in the book sitting and "doing nothing" while Ryder is generally active and on the go, hiking, chopping wood, studying, or womanizing. At the end of the book, he leaves for an extended trip to Japan. (He and Kerouac would never see each other again.)

"The Dharma Bums" offers a picture of a portion of American Buddhism during the 1950s. It also offers a portrayal of what has been called the "rucksack revolution" as Smith and Ryder take to the outdoors, and, in a lengthy and famous section of the book, climb the "Matterhorn" in California's Sierra Mountains. In the final chapters of the book, Kerouac spends eight isolated weeks on Desolation Peak in the Cascades as a fire watchman. He comes back yearning for human company.

Sexuality plays an important role in the book, against the backdrop of what is described as the repressed 1950's, as young girls are drawn to Ryder and he willingly shares them with an initially reluctant Smith. The book includes scenes of wild parties tinged, for Smith, with sadness, in which people of both sexes dance naked, get physically involved, and drink heavily. Near the end of the book, Ryder offers Smith a prophetic warning the alcoholism which would shortly thereafter ruin Kerouac's life.

"The Dharma Bums" is a fundamentally American book and it is full of love for the places of America, for the opportunity it offers for spiritual exploration, and for its people. Kerouac's compassion was hard earned. In his introduction to a later book, "The Lonesome Traveller" he
aptly described his books as involving the "preachment of universal kindness, which hysterial critics have failed to notice beneath frenetic activity of my true-story novels about the 'beat' generation. -- Am actually not 'beat' but strange solitary crazy Catholic mystic." I found a feeling of spirituality, of love of life in the face of vicissitudes, and of America in "The Dharma Bums." The work was indeed a popularization. But Kerouac's vision may ultimately have been broad.

Robin Friedman

"On the Road" gets all the attention. I stumbled through that novel, thought it was interesting. Then I saw this book, "Big Sur", in a bookstore and felt that because I was familiar with the area that this would be a nice read. When I finished this book I was sad with the fact that I would never come across a tale like it again. Ever. Consider the fact that I was only 17 at the time. This is that brilliant. It truly is a staggering tale of the way Kerouac's life changed after the fame of "On the Road". The Beat-down generation of youngsters he helped create become another obligation/weight for him, his drug-use and alcohol abuse wash over him. The Beat way of life becomes something else to escape from. This was his last novel, and it fits. It's not peaceful, instead it explodes across the pages and dissipates before you can come to a reconciliation with it or it's creator. This book broke my heart but truly awakened me to how powerful writing could be and what an incredible writer Kerouac was. The fact that he laid himself and his demons so bare in these pages is amazingly vulnerable of him (or any writer). Yet this book, through it's misty sorrow and burning madness, always remains inherently beautiful. It's not for everyone, Kerouac never was, but for those who get it there's just no coming back from "Big Sur".

Big Sur is the most mournful and tragic Jack Kerouac novel that I have yet read, and surprisingly, it is also his most focused. Though it lacks the sheer exhilaration of On the Road or The Dharma Bums, it makes up for it with poignant and beautiful insight into the author's inescapable depression and rejection of everything he once praised. Big Sur is definitely not the place to start reading Kerouac, but if you are already familiar with his earlier works, it is an absolutely necessary chapter in the saga of his life.

Reading Kerouac's bibliography and understanding where each novel fits into the story of his life can be a little tricky, because there are three dates that you need to keep in mind for each work. First is the period that the events in the novel actually took place, second the time that Kerouac wrote these events down, and third the date that his novel was published. Big Sur was published very shortly after it was written, mostly due to the author's recently achieved literary fame. On the Road, on the other hand, was written nearly a decade before it was published, and revised continually in the interim. Desolation Angels contains events before those in Big Sur, but was published (and partially written) several years afterwards. Before reading Big Sur, it is helpful to have first read On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and Desolation Angels (presumably in that order) to have a good understanding of the arc of Kerouac's life. It is probably also rewarding to read smaller works like The Subterraneans and Tristessa somewhere in the middle there, as their events also bear influence on the storytelling cycle as a whole, but I have not yet had the opportunity to do so.

Anyway, getting back to Big Sur itself: it might be a bit off-putting to hear so many people describe it as "heartbreaking" and "tragic." But this should not deter you from reading. The novel isn't one huge downer, but a slow unfolding (almost elegant) descent into madness, written by a man who by any measure should be at the peak of his success. Kerouac is never bitter about the way his life has turned out, but retains a sort of Buddhist calm in his recollection of the whirlwind events. I don't want to give anyway anything that happens in the plot, suffice to say that Kerouac begins the story with a peaceful retreat to a cabin in the Big Sur canyon, and tries every which was he can to escape the crushing weight of his depression and disillusionment.

The only weak part of the novel for me was the appended poem "Sea." It starts out interesting enough, capturing the physical sensations of sitting and watching the surf and the mythic wonderment with the idea of the sea itself. But it meanders a little too long for me---maybe I am just not a fan of Kerouac's poetry. All together, a solid 4.5 star book, and an essential read for Kerouac enthusiasts.

This is a story of a trip to the "woods" that was taken in hopes of straightening out a hoplessly fouled up life. While it has the complete opposite feel than the optimism of the Dharma Bums, it is like a continuation of the same story, after life has had it's way with the story teller. Although some people feel that Kerouac lost his abilities toward the latter part of his career. I believe this book shows that he did not. While I preferred the Dharma Bums, This would rank as my second favorite Kerouac "novel".

Jack Kerouac's BIG SUR(1961) is like watching a train wreck in slow motion... horrible, but you just can't help yourself from watching... in Jack's case, he writes about the lead-up to, and actual experience of, a nervous breakdown - obviously caused by excessive booze binges.

In 1960, Jack Kerouac was a man who basically had it all - his hit book ON THE ROAD(1957) inspired and defined the "Beat Generation"... but, at 40 years old, Jack has trouble keeping up the "bohemian" lifestyle. He arranges to cross the USA by train from back East, and seek refuge from his drinking bouts in a freind's cabin in Big Sur. After an initial booze binge on arrival to San Francisco, Jack actually does make it out to the cabin alone, and actually finds the peace and sober living he had initially wanted to find... but Jack begins to get bored, and finds his way back to SF, were he starts back on his old wild ways - but, it eventually catches up to him back at the Big Sur cabin, where he has brought the party... Jack writes about his paranoid delusions, DTs, etc. as he begins to come down off the booze after a two-week bender. This book was a preview of the end of Jack's life - he died 7 years later, of internal bleeding brought on by years of chronic alcohol abuse.

I've also lead a somewhat bohemian lifestyle (although apparently much less so, as compared to Jack Kerouac), and have been gradually cutting back on the partying for a few years now, and now that I'm 48 - one-year-older than Kerouac when he died - I finally felt OK about reading BIG SUR, which I've been wanting to read for years, but which kind of scared me to pick up, because ON THE ROAD kind of lead me down some wrong paths over the years... Now, for those of you who have wondered (like I did) whether this book would help or hurt one who is trying to get away from "the bohemian experience" - I say that it definately helped in my case (a weekend bohemian).

This is a good book, and a quick read. It is written in Jack's "classic" stream of conscienceness style. There really isn't a lot about Big Sur, other than the little valley Jack stays in... if you want to know more about Big Sur, it really can only be understood if you see it for yourself... but, be prepared to spend lots of money... I, luckily, was able to experience the area for one night on a side trip that my company had paid me to take to the area to deliver equipment to Monterey -- I actually got them to foot the bill for the small cabin I was able to find -- the last one in town! I managed to stay mostly out of trouble on my short visit to this "magic" corner of the Earth.

Kerouac pulled no internal punches with this one. He's there, at his worst in many ways, but the sordid tale is beautifully told. How he makes something so depressing and painful into a work of pure beauty is almost magical. No one had ever done fiction quite like Jack Kerouac, and no one has since been able to duplicate that style, or even ape it effectively.

BIG SUR is one of the top four of the Beat works. For me, it remains one of the most powerful--easily the saddest. And I think we need something of the expression of this kind of sadness.

this book was required reading when I was in high school, to be able to reread it with all the real people mentioned was a wonderful treat

This is an excellent version of a cult classic book that I HIGHLY recommend. With real names, more details and a sweet introduction you can't go wrong.

KLB

I read the standard version of ON THE ROAD years ago - and loved it. But having just read the unbroken by paragraph or chapter rush of the scroll version, it's like the literary equivalent of a Wellesian cinematic long take. And it makes a difference, a big difference in the book. It is no longer a book, it is the very onrush of Life and it is trip that carries you along whether you want to go or not. There is a truly hypnotic appeal in this unbroken narrative that is, yes, diluted in the standard version. The real names are welcome, the more explicit sexuality is welcome - but it is the literary long-take that makes this original version so complelling and irresisitable. (And just as an aside, as there would be no true Abbott without Costello and vice versa...there probably would not have been a Kerouac without Cassidy. Or if there were, he probably would have been lame and tame and not much remembered. But Kerouac's writing of the "Holy Goof" Cassidy smacks of a synergy that comes pure from Heaven - or Hell, if you disapprove the admittedly madcap lifestyle of the book's main hero.) Anyway - back to my main point - the unbroken scroll reads like how it was meant to be...for in its FORM is its very meaning...and that is that Life is a road and a rush and a journey and a thing to be explored, adventured into, seeking, searching...for Life is Movement and this book is the most mobile book ever written. A must...like a breath of fresh air! Like the wind blowing your hair through the open window of an immortal car on an unending drive. An Odyssey for our times - still! Thanks, Jack!

Fifty years ago
A wind started to blow
across America land of the free
The change was from normal to strange to beatific ectasy
and all be-
cause one man broke the sanctified clause between seen and unseen
and since his intense vision
of life, of love, of joy of strife
none of us could ever be the same again

Who do I worship? Who do I blame?

Jack.

I read his books/ I bleed his books dry with coffee in one hand
Blue Pentel in the other
And the man is blindly mad as well as kindly Saint brother

Him paint-
ing word pictures of pivateslideshowlife for all to see
He
and his pal Dean Moriarty
going across this great big wild plain

A trip for child mind
For angel heart
For illumiated soul
For frustrated dry bones of body weak

Shallow, hollow, small and frail
Hoping to find the Holy Grail.
Seek and ye shall find more than you could know

He infected intellects with sick artistic glow
Gave new license to be free
with words so easy without structure without form
so startling so mad so glad so sad
this storm of Beatific Fury.

Hip beyond words his echo remains
and his literary gifts still stains this world
In 1967 we sent the saint back to Heaven
no one to fill Jack's old shoes
no one will
and I got the blues

Poor sad Jack.

We need you back.


Peace & Blessings,
john, 'the Light Coach'

I mean, it's hard to write a review of something that people are stil trying to figure out exactly what it is, poem, novel, autobiography, jazz riff, all the above. It was great to see the unedited, unchanged version with original names and some relatively (to our times) tame sexual themata. I whizzed right through it trying to capture to wild ride Kerouac was on while writing this single paragraph tale of our age. When read alongside the more familiar version with paragraphs and quotations marks and pseudonyms, it was easy to see the power of the book and the overwhelming effect it must have had on readers when it first came out, even if it was in the more muted version. I loved it.

It also doesn't seem like the kind of book which requires either a synopsis or a lengthy review. This is not the Count of Monte Cristo, let's face it. It is hard to say that the book has a real plot per se. But it shook a generation because of its immediacy and honesty and emotional power. Maybe Truman Capote didn't like it (he called it "typing" not writing). But this was something new and raw, and plenty of people didn't like Miles Davis either.

A must-read for Kerouac afficionados. The depiction of his teenage years in Lowell, though sentimental at times, are some of his most beautiful prose; full of sunsets, football and first kisses.
Kerouac-Virgins should check out his 'On the Road' or 'The Subterraneans' first.

This is my favorite Kerouac novel. This is a beautiful book of life recounted through a teenager's way of looking at things.Through exciting highs and devastating lows, the writing is easy to follow and a moving read. If you're planning to begin reading Kerouac, this is an excellent novel to start with. It has the same emotion without unstructered chapters.

Jack Kerouac, writer of many a romantic tale; stories set out wst on roads hitchhiking, listening to jazz till 4 a.m., and just living by the moment, but not this one. Although it is written in his similar romantic run-on sentenced style that captivates any lover od literature, it's a story about his teen years back home. Most of it revolving around his love with his girl Maggie Cassidy. Being a teenager you see connections and dumb teenage stereotypes, that are sad but true. Stories of drunken New Years with the boys, tales of the track and football team, and mostly that story of love, the "world revolves around us" love.
"The wild windows of other houses and Saturday night parties shining the spilling molen hot gold of real life." This quote was from Jack's 18th birthday party, where his whole world (family and friends) were all dancing, mingling, and basically having a great time. This quote describes some of the amazing weekends we have as high school kids, where the fun seems to keep coming at ya.
Stories of high school parties, buddies, girls, drama, and love are all packed into 194 pages; every page telling a new adventure. Whether it be Jack's short life as a prep school student on a football scholarship, or his first generation French-American parents, or even just his nights with the boys. Anyone who is or has been enrolled in high school and been involved in the complicated life of a teenager would love this book, so basically everyone. There's a chapter for everone and Kerouac's characters all have original and meaningful personalities. When you read it old friends from your town will be remembered, the dialogue and actions of the city kids of the 30's will take you back to the guys and gals you hung out with on weekends.

When thinking of Jack Kerouac the first think you think about is On The Road, or the Dharma Bums. Yet this is a story that has a very personal feel to it. In some ways more so than his other stories. The basic story line is love, love lost and love that got away, yet never forgotten. I'm over simplifying, but that is what it comes down to. Clocking in at just fewer than 200 pages. Kerouac fits a lot into a short novel. On almost every page you can get a feel of Kerouac have regret for losing Maggie Cassidy. The true beauty comes from the language that Kerouac uses to describe things and people. It is really something to read the final time Kerouac and Cassidy meet. It is sad and powerful in the descriptions and the visual images that he gives that give insight to Kerouac more as a person rather than a writer. This story can best be understood from someone who is "older" in years. I say that in terms of thinking rather than actual age. Because although I am 25, at the time of this review, I can relate to the story, yet I am sure that I will relate to the story more as I get older.

This is a wonderful story that we can all relate to in some way or fashion. It is wonderful piece lit that is better than some of the garbage I reading my junior year English class, when I was in high school.

When Kerouac was good he was superb. This is young love in a glorious, mind-bending nutshell. Beautifully written and deeply felt.

When I was much younger and had experienced my first brutal betrayal in life, this novel was my greatest comfort. Kerouac had uncanny vision into the human heart, and was capable of expressing the awful paradox of young love, the joy and pain of it, it terms that were never sentimental, and often quietly heroic.

A poetic, lovely book.

I just finished reading this novel yesterday, I loved the novel and how Johnson describes life in that inner circle. I agree with other reviews, do not read this book if you're only interested in Kerouac. What I came to realise was Johnson's point of view was not only to the idea of being a "minor character" in the history it self, but the fact that women during that time frame were only considered minor characters in life. I highly recommend this novel to any.

Baby boomers will recognize the freewheeling emotions and impulses described in this book about the late '50s, because these were ours in the '60s and '70s. Joyce Johnson's own transformation, and her close observations of her beat companions and the intellectual stew of NY in the late '50s, give hints of what will happen to America in the following 15 years.

In particular, the author has a unique ability to articulate the feelings female baby boomers absorbed growing up, before the feminist revolution swept us away in the early 70s. As a small example, she points out how girls reading adventurous novels (like On the Road) didn't separate themselves from the guys but fully inhabited the male characters. Male narrators are not a problem for women the way female narrators can be for men.

This was the third book I bought at the City LIghts bookstore when I was there in 2005 or so. It was this one, a book of beat poety and a collection of San Francisco short stories. I read the beat poetry and this memoir at about the same time, which was a good way of doing so, as many of them dovetailed. I bought it for Joyce, not for Kerouac, as I'm not his biggest fan anyway and have never read On the Road. Was very impressed. It does a good job of showing the lives of the beats and how they lived and the insanity moments of them. Captured the feel of it. But sad. I liked Elise and Hettie a lot and kinda want to read Hettie's memoir too. And probably the dudes at some point too. I like when she's talking about beatnik as a commodification situation.

Joyce Glassman's memoir is very well written and is truly a fascinating account. She manages to describe a scene and give the reader a glimpse of a particular era--long gone. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the 1950's, the beat generation, women in the 1950's, and New York City at that time.

This memoir recounting a young woman's years spent in the inner circle of Jack Kerouac is well-written and gripping enough to hold its readers' attention. Placed firmly in the center of the Beat Generation, her story teems with indecision and insecurity, the desire to get up and go, leaving responsibilities at home to see the nation and experience life.

-- Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens