Jack Kerouac Books

Free Beer offers insight into Jack Kerouac's Jekyll and Hyde personality as well as many great examples of Anderson's ability as a writer of both short stories and tall tales.

Years ago,I had read a magazine article about Jack Kerouac which basically portrayed Kerouac as a falling down drunk and worst of all, a totally unsympathetic character. This writer, a young man with no life experience and nothing risked as yet, passing judgment on an American classic author! I had read DHARMA BUMS in high school and was fascinated by Kerouac's stream of consciousness monologues. It spoke to my wandering youth and left me with a deep respect for his easy, off the cuff writing style. Needless to say, the magazine article left me feeling a bit empty-another hero bites the dust.
It was such a joy and relief, to pick up FREE BEER and hear a much more hopeful story regarding Kerouac's last years. The author,Cliff Anderson, was a close fiend, drinking buddy and budding author in Tampa, FL in the sixties, spending many years in his company and his acquaintance. Free Beer, the title short story is a revved up,laughing kick which gives great insight into Kerouac's intelligence and wit. It left me with the impression that Kerouac was even more of a genius than I had imagined. One hysterical event in the story not to be missed is Cliff and Jack's visit to Mike Fowler, a sportswriter for the ST. PETERSBURG INDEPENDENT. In an effort to hasten their departure to beach bar partying, Kerouac bangs out a column for Fowler in minutes. Anderson's telling of the tale leaves you chuckling and realizing Kerouac was magic in person as well as on the printed page.
The other short stories in the volume show that some of Kerouac's style, wit and directness was absorbed by Anderson. There's even a joint effort by both authors, an obvious effort by Kerouac to encourage Anderson's writing spirit.
Worth the price, especially to restore a tarnished image to its proper shine and light. Kerouac lives and there still are a few heroes.

Cliff Anderson was a close pal of Jack Kerouac during his final years in Florida and in a very pragmatic sense relates this experience during an interview with (my good buddy, great guy!) Rod Anstee of Ottawa, Ontario (author of a well-known Kerouac bootleg bibliography) -- very interesting to say the least and given my interest in Jack K., the highlight of the book.

But it also contains a nice collage of Mr. Anderson's own works which are quite entertaining in their own right.

Gifford and Lee, seemingly well read about the Beats and Keoruac, are second only to Ann Charter's biographical work on Kerouac. The real sense of the'50's, the mentality, the hazards, and the activities of Burrows, Ginsberg,Jack and the boys are given a very thorough and entertaining once over. The scholarly merit isn't here, but the titilation and interesting skinny is.

Chock to bursting with recollections from Kerouac's intimates, this page-turner will be read in two or three sittings. These recollections are interspersed among the authors' own discoveries and conclusions. Not as exhaustive as "Memory Babe," this book is more for the person just getting into Kerouac's work and life. In the back of this book are lists of what has become of these acquaintances of Kerouac's and what their aliases were in his books, information which will become dearer to you as you delve deeper into Jack's Duluoz Legend. All in all, one terrific book worth anyone's time and money.

I love oral histories, and I Kerouac's alright. Its neat that the people responsible for this book collected and intereviewed some of Jack's friends from before he became famous. I was also unaware of his firt's marriages annulment and his involvment in hiding a body. There's a lot of great snippets... but there's also a lot of boring windbags blowing in this book too.

Still, its worth every penny.

For a true kerouac reader, i think it's worth it to work through this book. It's long, but a good part of it is the editor talking, a woman who has a true love of Kerouac. It's a little bit of everything, from his letters, to his ideas on buddhism(my personal fave) It's a good, but long, read

GRANTED that the selections are a mishmash of Kerouac styles, and at times misuse words with a kind of tender haughtiness and screw you if you don't like it but this is what I bruit. Bruit? But at his best Kerouac time and again tells us of that railroad earth and trains rolling under October skies and rushes up our noses with piney phrases that would raise gooseflesh on Thomas Wolfe. What's more, Ann Charters serves Jack nobly by inventively selecting along a timeline that captures the hero's age throughout, a superb bit of editing much like Malcolm Cowley's for The Portable Faulkner in which he patched together a groundbreaking picture of Yoknapatawpha County from Faulkner's many works. A Must-Have Kerouac volume that should break ground for new readers and give old admirers a bath in that old spontaneous prose he dreamed up nightly with candlelight on the kitchen table, booze, and weed. Some of it's mush, some visionary, and much of it just what writing should be: straight from the heart.

This collection is wonderfully edited. There are no major breaks in the plot and Ann Charters commentary provides a good context to understand the book (e.g. she provides a table that matches character names to actual people). However, since the books were written out of order, the immensely different writing styles of Kerouac's different novels do not mesh well at times. It is fine for somebody who has had previous exposure to Kerouac's writing and now wants a survey of all his different styles, but I would generally recommend buying the individual books.

Basic overview of the author's relationship to Jan Kerouac - he interviewed her to do her biography, this went all right for a while and she decided she did not like him anymore. Seems to be no real reason for this but it happened anyway. Jones does not seem hurt by this and still sees Kerouac as an interesting and worthy subject.

I think this is an interesting area not tapped into very much, since Jan and Jack had no relationship whatsoever, though anyone who has read her books can tell that he had a major impact on her life. It is hard enough to have an absent father. Make that father Jack Kerouac and it gets even more difficult. What I found even more interesting is the interviews with Jack's nephew, who I have never seen anything written up on before this book, which is probably because he seems to be a pleasant and well adjusted fellow who had a good and healthy relationship with his uncle, but still interesting to read about here nonetheless. As for Jan, it is hard to take what she says at face value, since she seems to have forgotten a lot of what she says has happened to her or changes it from time to time. But I don't know how much of that might be because it didn't happen quite as she either remembered it at the time of interviewing or writing her books or whether it was just the effects of all she had done in her life. But overall that didn't really matter, the reader really gets the essence of who Jan Kerouac was in this book. She was far more rebellious than her father ever was and far more wild. Her mother couldn't control her and it doesn't sound as if she really tried. So whether small details are true or not seems unimportant when looking at her overall life. She was a tough lady who, sadly, had a lot of problems with drugs, alcohol, and men.

I had some issues with the author using this book as a way to make a case for the Sampas family. While I do agree that they take some unnecessary flack from people in general, the author uses having a book published on Jan Kerouac to go on and on about the politics surrounding Jan and the Sampas family. While I think this info. is definitely helpful, there really are two sides to every story and Jones goes on and on ad naseum about how wonderful and benevolent the Sampas family are and how they are really the victims while Gerald Nicosia is a big bad evil person exploiting Jan and her famous father. I am not saying he couldn't be right, only that, despite what the author suggests, both sides probably have good points. And I must admit that it bothers me that, in writing a book about how strong Jan Kerouac was in spite of those pesky human vulnerabilities, he makes her out to be a victim in the end. His book discusses how she would not allow men to take advantage of her and how she was overall a strong sort of person, and then, in taking up his crusade against Gerald Nicosia, he completely turns around and discusses how Nicosia manipulated her and turned her into a total victim. Hmmm. Mostly it just left me wondering at Jones's point - did he write the book to give insight into Jan's life, or to take sides in a legal battle?

well it certainly was an eye opener to greed and what a messed up family they were........ to bad to bad about alot of things huh ... but still a good book for any kerouac fanatic ... a good thing to have in your collection on kerouac

I hope to meet author at 12th annual Lowell Celebrates Jack Kerouac Days in Lowell---early October...discuss his forthcoming related title-

As the first reviewer mentioned, Edie does cover a lot of the notorious antics of a younger kerouac and if you've studied his life at all you will not be caught off guard by any startling revelations in this book. However what this book offers that others do not, is a personal and real perspective about the Man, not the myth. For instance, his habit of ringing his hands before he launched into something serious, the fact that he kept a toothbrush in his breast pocket, or even his favorite sleeping position. I enjoyed these memoirs thoroughly and came away feeling as though I personally had spent time in the 'libertines circle'.

Definitely worth a read.

Although Edie Parker was Jack's "first wife" this is not the first time I have heard these stories. You'll Be Okay, is somewhat akin to any other biography of Jack Kerouac, the difference being is that its from a "lovers" perspective. It is an OKAY bit of literature and is edited well.. however, it lacks a creative insight into the world of Jack. I do wish Edie would of written it herself...without the help of previous written accounts. Worth a look see.

You'll Be Okay: My Life with Jack Kerouac is the true-life memoir of Edie Kerouac-Parker (1923-1992), the first wife of famous novelist Jack Kerouac. Penned long after Jack Kerouac had passed on, You'll Be Okay is a tale of girlhood love - when both Edie and Jack were only 18, and met at Columbia University. The young lovers moved in together, sharing an apartment with the future wife of William Burroughs, and began lifetime friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and others. A reminiscence of excitement, hope, passion, and dreams, illustrated with a handful of black-and-white photographs and skillfully edited by Timothy Moran and Bill Morgan.

If you are familiar with everything Jack Kerouac ever wrote, then this set is a great memory jogger. If you are new to his work it is a superb introduction. Or perhaps you've tried to read him but never got into his "flow of consciousness" style. Then, these recordings teach you how to hear him in your mind- as one long, sweet jazz riff. Just close your eyes and let him transport you to better times and better places. Of course, Kerouac's America is still out there, here and there, in forgotten corners, in special places and special people.

Kerouac was the soul of his age. Who else but Jack could go from commenting on Dostoeveky one minute, then switch to the Three Stooges without missing a beat? Or just as easily go from Sanskrit to skat. And it works. That is because a great soul can encompass entire worlds without contradiction....

The Jack Kerouac Collection is a four-tape set from Rhino Records compiling recordings Kerouac made in 1958 and 1959. Here's an overview of what you'll find here:

Tape 1, Poetry For The Beat Generation, a recording of Kerouac reading his poetry accompanied by television personality Steve Allen on piano. This is probably the weakest tape in the set. Altough it contains a couple of Kerouac's better poems ("Charlie Parker" and "The Wheel Of the Quivering Meat Conception"), most of his other work here comes off as self-indulgent and pretentious. Allen's piano is workmanlike but dull.

Rating: **

Tape 2, Blues And Haikus, is a little better. Here, Kerouac's accompanied by Al Cohn on saxophone and piano and Zoot Sims on saxophone. The standout track here is "American Haikus", featuring Kerouac reading short snatches of often striking, imagistic poetry in between Cohn and Sims' riffing saxes. Suprise: "Hard Hearted Old Farmer", on which Kerouac sings (!).
Even Bigger Suprise: He's not too bad (!!). Crazy, man, crazy.

Rating: **1/2

Tape 3, Readings By Jack Kerouac On The Beat Generation, is easily the best one of the bunch. This concentrates more on Jack's prose pieces, which is its saving grace. Standout track: "Fantasy: The Early Years Of Bop", which, with the exception of Lester Bangs' essay on Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (collected in his excellent Psychotic Reactions And Carburetor Dung), is probably the best piece of music writing I've come across.

Rating: ****

Tape 4, The Last Word, consists of outtakes from the Blues And Haikus sessions; a speech entitled "Is There A Beat Generation?' from a Brandeis University lecture of the same name, and brief readings from Visions Of Cody and On The Road from a 1959 television appearance. These range from the embarrassingly bad (the Blues And Haikus outtakes, featuring on obviously drunk Kerouac) to the sublime (the '59 TV show readings), which makes the tape a fitting capper to the set.

Rating: **1/2

In sum - if you're a Kerouac fan, you'll probably want to check this out. If you're new to his work, you're probably better off starting with one of his novels - On The Road is probably his best.

The idea behind this book is intriguing. Jack Kerouac comes back to Earth after being dead for a long thirteen years. He meets up with his old buddies and discovers just how much his beloved America has changed.

Unfortunately, the book just isn't that good. Rosenthal attempts to imitate Kerouac's spontaneous prose, but fails. He captures the Kerouac cliche quite nicely. It's almost satirical, but that is obviously not the intention. Several of Kerouac's expressions are abused, making it seem as though the writing follows a specific formula.

There are a few moments, however, where something Kerouacian shines through. I really enjoyed some passages. In many parts, this book consists of good writing. Unfortunately, all of those parts are when the author stops imitating for a moment and just sees things through his character's eyes.

In the end, I don't know if I'd recommend this book or not. The Beat Literature fan in me was disgusted. I felt the book did Kerouac no justice. It was kind of amusing, however, to read about Kerouac and Corso in Disneyland. It was also entertaining to entertain the thought of William Burroughs letting this Kerouac reincarnation shoot an apple off of HIS head.

Read it, but don't expect too much.

I am glad that I saved this book for summer night reading. This isn't some Beat nostalgia trip by a Kerouac wannabe. It's much better than that.

Here we have the ghost of Jack Kerouac involuntarily returned to earth. He didn't want to come back, but like life and death, it just happened. Also, like life, he has no idea why he has returned. He just awakened into renewed existance, 13 years after his death, looking physically thirteen years older, with a vague memory of having been somewhere else- maybe Mexico.

Kerouac is drawn back to the people who were linked to him in life. It isn't that he has any unfinished business with them, it is almost like a gravitational attraction. He is drawn to those people, and places where his influence lingers. It just so happens that most of the old friends and acquantances that he meets come across as pretty unsympathetic. Because they live so much in past memories they do not recognise him- or believe him, when he tells them who he is. He is just a crazy old bum. That is, except for Gary Snyder, and possibly Gregory Corso. So Kerouac wanders through 80's America becoming increasingly disillusioned by what his friends, and the country, has become. Yet, all through his travels, a mysterious Indian/ trainman/ biker/ sage keeps reappearing with just the right observations and comments....

Oh yes, the author even puts in a bowling ball-pumping cameo. He comes across as an angel. I guess when you write the book, then you get to be an angel if you want to be....

Tytell gives an excellent insight into the founding members of the Beat movement. He shows the backgrounds and the motivations of one of the most innovative literary movements in the 20th century. I would strongly recomend this for anyone , especially if they are just starting to explore this group of writers.

Published over twenty years ago, Naked Angels still holds up as a thorough critical study of the works of Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Kerouac. The first section deals mainly in biography, but it seeks to explain why each of the writers explored certain topics and how their experiences shaped their styles. However, if you have studied these three in a biographical sense, the information presented here will not be new to you.

The second section covers the works of the three writers. While there is certainly a wealth of sources that give critical insights into Beat writing, this section brings them together into an often detailed, more often general study of Beat themes, styles, and voices. The Ginsberg section is particularly detailed in its analysis of Ginsberg's long lines and mysticism. Though Kerouac and Burroughs receive their share of treatment, the Burroughs section lacks the further illumination provided by Burroughs over the last twenty years of his life. And the Kerouac section hits only the high points, simply because it would be too difficult to cover every aspect of this prolific writer's work in a mere 70 pages.

This book is a solid overview of the core Beats and their seminal works. Its age shows at times, but it's worth a read as a well-written and well-thought treatment of Beat literature.

Man, this is a hard slog. This is truly a work of spontaneous prose and you quickly realize this as you try to follow any path of sensible thought until you get to the point where you realize `It's not there'. This is not the written sounds of anything that flowed through Kerouac's midnight window, as he has you believe in a letter to a friend. I have never heard anything like that anywhere through any window of my life. This is purely Kerouac's mind at play with words as they pop into his thoughts. There are some beautiful subtle fragments to be found in this work, mixed in with, phew, with umm, all sorts of stuff. It's a potpourri of poetry written upon the meditation of his own mind & quite often very funny. I believe he succeeded in what he set out to do, but that outcome by its nature is not something appealing to most people. Only a hard core Kerouac fan could truly love this book. I read it in one hit. Perhaps the secret is to pick it up & read stanzas at a time, over time. It's very interesting, means nothing, demands concentration & leaves you scratching your head. I liked it but could love it with time. I'd give it five stars for its brilliance & inventiveness but its inaccessibility can only grant it four.

This book is about the time the author just sits in his lonely shack and listens to the sounds around.I guess if you just sit and listen intendly right now to all the sounds coming into your universe you will get the message jack was trying to put across. The best way to read this book is to read a section at a time out loud to someone. The result is quite magical. The words somehow all become clear and the visions and situations become real. This is not an easy book to comprehend in the normal manner of a read but hey delve in deep and it becomes a cosmic comet in the universe of your mind.

To me, more satifying than the whole of "Jack's Book" (Gifford's and Lawrence Lee's oral biography on Lowell's most famous son). "Kerouac's Town" is a slim volume that can easily be devoured in one sitting but, like all of Gifford's memoir pieces, leaves you with the impression that you've just undertaken a large, relevatory journey. This is because he writes without pretension -often without too much description either- somehow managing to leave his truly individualistic take on things without being verbose.

The book (based on the 1977 revised edition) is the author and photographer's pilgrimage to the subject's home town of Lowell on the anniversary of his death. They wander around, looking for accomodation, chat with the locals, placing the streets and landmarks within the context of Kerouac's biographical novels, visit his grave and, in the final chapter of the book, visit his widow, Stella, in Florida. There ain't much in the way of biography here so look elsewhere for that: for those interested in Kerouac this should probably be taken only as a companion piece to "Jack's Book".

In short, Gifford writes with the motto "less is more" emblazoned upon his pen. The black and white photographs by Marshall Clements are evocative of the sleepiness of the town but serve only to illustrate the text. A magical, small book that, to me, is all the more special for being so.