Jack's Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac

by Barry Gifford, Lawrence Lee

'Jack Kerouac died in 1969 at the age of forty-seven . . . Most of his friends survived him. Our idea was to seek them out and talk with them about Jack's life and their own lives. The final result, we hoped, would be a big, transcontinental conversation, complete with interruptions, contradictions, old grudges and bright memories, all of them providing a reading of the man himself through the people he chose to populate his work.' In this kaleidoscopic portrait of Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Carolyn Cassady, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Gore Vidal and many others talk, argue and reminisce about their times with him. But alongside these luminaries of the Beat generation are the voices of those who knew a different side of the working men, the childhood friends, the bar companions, the lovers. Fascinating, honest and richer than any orthodox biography could be, Jack's Book documents Kerouac's genius in its full, tragic, contradictory glory.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Literature, Biography Memoir, Classics, Oral History

370 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Barry Gifford is an American author, poet, and screenwriter known for his distinctive mix of American landscapes and film noir- and Beat Generation-influenced literary madness.

He is described by Patrick Beach as being "like if John Updike had an evil twin that grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and wrote funny..."He is best known for his series of novels about Sailor and Lula, two sex-driven, star-crossed protagonists on the road. The first of the series, Wild at Heart, was adapted by director David Lynch for the 1990 film of the same title. Gifford went on to write the screenplay for Lost Highway with Lynch. Much of Gifford's work is nonfiction.

Reviews

[M. Mangan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was not a Kerouac fan per se, but I was able to read this book one summer as part of my job for the Park Service in his hometown of Lowell. It was one of the best biographies that I ever read. I was completely engrossed.

One of my favorite aspects was that they would interview several people for the same incident, and let you hear from each of them separately--rather than mashing it into a whole. It was very Rashomon-esque. And it was so interesting to see how the individual's perspectives affected their view of the event.

Tremendous as a life tale, really.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this kind of biography--where the people in a central figure's life relate their piece of the elephant. In the case of Kerouac, whose ouevre is really a crafted autobiography, the opportunity to hear direct from the actual characters their impression of their friend and their take on the actual events that Kerouac uses in his great novels--it's the perfect placement of a third mirror, completing the experience of Kerouac's work, one ongoing novel featuring an extended group of his remarkable friends. (A useful sidebar to Jack's Book, and indeed, Kerouac as a whole, is a list on Beat dot com, telling us Who's Who in Kerouac--as he changes everybody's name but little else.)

We hear from everybody--the authors Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee have found interviews and statements from the vast extended constellation of Kerouac's friends, including its major characters--Neal Cassady and Allen Ginzberg, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder and the San Francisco gang, Gregory Corso, Lew Welch and Phillip Whalen, Ferlinghetti--and less famous but more intimate friends, childhood friends. Plus the women, finally heard from-- including Luanne, Neal's first wife (Mary Lou in On the Road) and Carolyn, his second, (the beautiful Camille in OTR) often shared with Kerouac, Lenore Kandel (Romana Swartz in Dharma Bums) and even Aline Lee (Mardou Fox in The Subterraneans). A more straightforward account of the writer's sexuality and the Beat communality around just about everything, his complex relationship/dependence on his mother. The early New York scene, the Denver one, the San Francisco Beats.

I've been listening to this rather than reading on the page when I stumbled on it on my library's Libby audiobooks site, and loving it this way, it gives you such a feel for these living people... Then I go back to On the Road and because I know these people now, have a clearer idea of what had been happening from other people's point of view, it gives me that more appreciation for Kerouac's artistry, and the complexity of the man. What's in and what's not, why he made his mother his aunt and so forth. Essential piece of Kerouaciana.

[Manick Govinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my bible when I was 16-17yrs old. How I dreamed of being a beat, and how I copied such style in my diary entries of the time. I give it high marks purely for nostalgia.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING. I love biographies, though I don't read them very often. Probably the most interesting book I've ever read is "Natasha," a biography of Natalie Wood. This one is a very, very close second.

My favorite part of biographies is reading the quotes/stories from the people who knew the person the biography is about. This being an "oral biography" meant that the majority of it IS quotes from these people, most of them fascinating and famous people in their own right (like Allen Ginsberg). Reading how these people perceived Jack, perceived his behavior and his thoughts and certain events that happened, was fascinating, because some of it didn't really make sense, some of it was contradictory, and some of it was profoundly insightful. Among all these stories comes the "essence" of Kerouac, and it doesn't seem like the exact details matter much. It's too bad Jack, with his incredible memory, wasn't able to give an interview for this book.

The end of the book has a section that identifies who in Kerouac's novels is supposed to be who in his real life, which is going to be an immensely helpful resource when I start delving into his body of work. It seems absolutely essential to read something like this before reading any of his fiction, because his books are so derived from his life that their meaning would be so much less without a knowledge and understanding of who Kerouac was, what he did, where he came from, and how he related with people.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fame destroyed Jack Kerouac. Before On the Road was published, Jack was a prolific writer who, in his works, memorialized at great length his friends. This becomes evident in Barry Gifford's Jack's Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac, which goes through Jack's life by interviewing his friends, wives, old girlfriends, and literary acquaintances. Roughly half the text consists of directly quoted interview material, with he rest being Gifford's segues.

One of these interviewees was "Irene May," the black woman with whom Jack had an affair described in his novel The Subterraneans:

Later, I don't know whether it was in the late fifties or the early sixties, I asked jack, "Well, how do you like fame?" He said, "It's like old newspapers blowing down Bleecker Street."

John Clellon Holmes, the author of Go, a novelization about Jack and his set of friends, wrote:

I'm not sure that if you handle fame, you deserve it. He deserved it because he was a great writer, in my opinion, but there was nothing in his personality that could handle it, that could be judicious about it, that could say, "Well, I understand they're not talking to me, they're talking to their idea of me." That's what made him good.

Within twelve years after the publication of On the Road, Jack died at the age of 47 from an alcoholism that grew ever worse after his fame arrived on the scene.

[Blake Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never seem to get tired of reading about the Beat Generation. Maybe because it's a time in American culture and history that reminds me so much of right now. (super social conservatism, rampant conformism among the young, irrational fear of non-existent enemies).

To add to stuff I already knew is a lot of dirt, sexual mostly. So if you're wondering who slept with who among the beats, the answer is: "everyone".

[Allan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. The personal reflections of the actual participants of Kerouac's stories, make this book a unique and valueable resource. Would recommend it to any Kerouac fan.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an oral history of Jack Kerouac, as told by many people who knew him before he was famous, and after he was famous, and even after he died at the age of 47, certainly in part due to alcoholism. Some may say that alcoholism is part of what made him great, and also part of what made him tormented.

I give this book 5 stars even though I am pretty sure I didn’t understand more than half of it. I listened to on the road in the audible version sometime this past year and I don’t think I understood more than half of that either. This guy bounced around. This story is told by his friends and lovers, and he had plenty of both. He fell in and out of relationships with men and women. He apparently had a photographic memory and could go back and tell the story about his life after the fact a year later, or even more.

[Wilfriedhoujebek · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as the biographical content of this book is concerned the interview form appears a bit too rough. This is not so much a proper biography as it is raw material from which future biographers can plunder quotes for centuries to come. What is great about this book is that it explains and shows things you won't find anywhere else: the effect Neal Cassady had on people, the atmosphere at the Burroughs/Volmerr farm in Texas, the way various people responded to each other (positively and negative). This book is a joy to read but I would recommend to read a real biography alongside it.

[Chris Meger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hate what the world did to Kerouac. But after reading this book, at least I understand it better.

[Jay C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great oral biography of a great writer (& tragic figure in literature). Helps if you already have a background in Kerouac and have read most of his books. Might not make a lot of sense otherwise.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for those wanting to know more about Kerouac and the cast of characters featured in his books. Also an interesting read for those familiar with his work. A mixture of biography affirmed by friends and family member's memories. As it was written in 1978 includes many of those no longer with us, including Stella Sampas his last wife, Luanne Henderson, "Mardou Fox" the woman from The Subterraneans who asked she only be identified by the pseudonym "Irene May." Ginsberg. Corso, Burroughs, Huncke, Lucien Carr, and others also interviewed.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent (multi)hetero-biography of the most famous proponent of the beat generation; thoroughly enjoyed the multiple narrative angles of his respective friends and acquaintances which make up this story of the life of Kerouac (and it's included in audible membership).

[Craig Rowland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack’s Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac by Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee was published in 1978. I have had this book for close to thirty years yet never bothered to read it until now. During my later university years I read the beat classics and still own quite a few beat novels that remain unread. This is one of four Kerouac biographies I have which, with the exception of this one now, also remain unread. Jack’s Book is a compilation of reminiscences-–often lengthy ones-–by his friends, girlfriends, fellow writers and wives. Gifford and Lee knit them all together seamlessly with their biographical fill-ins. It never felt like an abrupt stop-and-start whenever I left the authors’ text to read the interview subjects’ responses.

I learned how fame and the reputation the press bestowed upon him ruined Kerouac. Succinctly put, he couldn’t deal with the attention after On the Road was published in 1957, and drowned himself in drink. Kerouac felt pressured to be something he was not, and publishers were only interested in an On the Road sequel and not so much in the work he had written in the years he waited before the beat classic could be published. Teens would hang outside his homes looking to be enlightened by the King of the Beats (an appellation he abhorred). The biography recounted numerous episodes where young people showed up and took Kerouac to bars. With his life focussed on getting drunk there must have been no attraction in having these young people around except for their capacity to drive him to the nearest bar to get hammered.

Interviews with intimates, especially the women in his life like both of Neal Cassady’s wives, Luanne and Carolyn, sorted out the facts from the fiction in Kerouac’s novels. They proved what the authors stated at the very beginning, that Kerouac often used his friends and family in his novels as character types, but enhanced real-life events or altered reality around them within his work. His immediate pen-to-paper writing style rang true but it was not always autobiographical. The authors let their interview subjects speak freely and the responses would go on for multiple pages, which showed the degree of comfortability they had speaking with Gifford and Lee. I could even picture subtle eyebrow raises and poignant moments when Carolyn Cassady took a drag on her cigarette as she spoke. The transcriptions were astonishingly realistic.

One remark often made was about Kerouac’s prolific memory. He wrote about the people and events in his life and it was a game among his friends to pick up his latest novel and to find themselves in it. The authors wrote:

“Superbly organized from the beginning of his career, he was a most formal curator of his own memories. He intended to make use of them.”

And indeed he did. Publishers were afraid of lawsuits but none of Kerouac’s friends cared that they had been written about, even though he did use pseudonyms.

Over forty years since the publication of this biography, I could see that only two of the interview subjects remain with us: Luanne Henderson (Cassady) and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was younger Jack Kerouac turned me on to reading. And when I was older Barry Gifford turned me on to writing. So what happens when I come across Giffords oral biography of Jack Kerouac?
Double the pleasure. Double the fun.
I 19m glad a lot of my college English professors hated Kerouac. They talked his ideas down. They disrespected his writing style. They thought he was a phony as a person. So, man, that motivated me more than ever to read 1COn the Road, 1D and 1CThe Dharma Bums, 1D and 1CVisions of Cody 1D I 19m not so sure how much I appreciated the books, but someone who could piss off so many snotty professors had to have something going for him.
Gifford, the author of my favorite novel 1CPort Tropique 1D may have been inspired my the man 19s life. In Jack 19s Book, Gifford concentrates on the reflections of people closest to Kerouac at his peak. Through a series of intimate interviews Gifford is able to picture a spirit that inspired a generation. In fact, many of the people that Gifford interviewed the book had actually served as models for real characters in the novels.
My favorite passage involves Carolyn Cassidy. In real life she became Neal Cassady 19s wife. In 1COn the Road, 1D she was the dark-haired Camille. Through her recollections, we get a real good feeling for how spirited and insane and colorful these people were against the stodgy black, white and grey backdrop of the 1950 19s Midwest. Carolyn seems like a hip chick, but she 19s never seen anything like the beats. Gifford 19s eye for detail and emotion not only give us a good story, but help us penetrate the writer behind the adventure.

[Jeff Buddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Jack’s Book” by Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee is an oral biography stitching together the voices of Jack Kerouac’s contemporaries, the people that populate his novels. It’s been out of print for years, but I tracked it down after finishing “Dharma Bums.” Reading the latter, I had a hard time believing that Kerouac was as steeped in Buddhism as his character, fiction being the place where a writer can embellish his life and not be branded a liar.

I was wrong, to an extent. Jack was the one who introduced Allen Ginsberg to Buddhism, not the other way around. And Gary Snyder reveals that Jack was indeed deeply invested in Buddhism, happy that it didn’t require him to abandon his ingrained Catholicism. Snyder reports that the account in “Dharma Bums” was pretty much what happened.

In “Jack’s Book,” Gifford and Lee have let their subjects speak for themselves, stitching together a chorus of voices with connective tissue that turn what could easily be raw material into a narrative that limns Jack Kerouac’s life, his early exuberance, raw talent, and eventual decline and fall. It’s a brilliant book, simultaneously as readable as a novel and raw material for future scholars.

Gifford and Lee interviewed ‘em all: Ginsberg, Burroughs, Lucien Carr, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, Huncke, etc. And the women, wives, and girlfriends normally peripheral to the Beat narrative are front and center here. The ghost in the room is –of course—Neal Cassady, long dead by the time this book was put together.

Anybody embarking on either a serious or casual study of the Beats should include “Jack’s Book” on their reading list.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

(5.30.12) Merrill and I took a trip to Portland and spent Monday morning in Powell's. Nordstrom bought her $600 of fashion books. I bought this plus 'Desolation Angels' and 'The Practice of the Wild'.

(7.7.12) I read this over the last couple of weeks. It has some fascinating stuff in it, obviously all the more fascinating when it relates to the novels you've read recently. Also his relationship with his mother will delight Freudians everywhere. There's maybe too much on Neil Cassady, but the stuff on Burroughs and Ginsberg made me want to read them, which I am ashamed to admit I've never done. The last 50 pages are at once tragic and anticlimactic because he descends so swiftly into alcoholism. It would also have been very useful to have known when and in what circumstances the interviews were conducted. Anyway yesterday I bought both the Town and the City and On the Road at the U bookstore. Their selection of Beat related books is excellent and makes me think they must do a Beat course.

[Taylor Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read several other Kerouac biographies, but this one was done in such a unique and wonderful way. The truth behind beat stories and mythological tales were revealed in their gritty reality and renewed grandeur. Reading this book makes you want to read all of the contemporary "beat literature" by all of jack's friends who were writers and poets. But most of all reading these pages make you want to go and read every book, every essay, and every article that Mr. Kerouac managed to publish in his short life. The final chapter makes you cringe at the squandered talent that was flushed away with the premature death of Jack due to uncontrolled alcoholism. A great cultural piece of true 1950's americana.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading tragedy and Kerouac's life is such a grand tragedy and to read about that tragedy from the people who knew and love him only makes that tragedy so much more grand.

Jack's Book offers great insight of how Kerouac touched the lives of so many people over the course of his brief life. I really enjoyed reading the words offered by Luanne Henderson mostly because of how Kerouac vilified her in On the Road that it was nice to hear her voice. Jack's Book is definitely tailored to the seasoned Kerouac reader and is a great addition to the library of any Kerouac enthusiast.

[W. Koistinen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good book, at least if you wanna here the voice of Kerouac's contemporaries, and at the same time have a quick peak at Jack's life. The actual biographical part is quite brief, and I noticed many small errors compared to Nicosia's biography, which is v-e-r-y thorough. So if you want accurate biographical information, I would recommend that. On the other hand this book reveals, not just Jack's, but his friends personalities also, and deepens them a bit. So, all in all, a good add to other books about Jack, but not necessarily the number one source to his life.

[Chuck O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kerouac was my bridge from comic books to literature, when I was a teenager so he will always hold a nostalgic place for me. This book is a great presentation of his history. It is very sad. Another bright talent squandered by alcoholism. I came away sadder about Jack's slow-motion suicide now that I am about the same age as he was when he died.

[Leoni Horton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read many books about Kerouac, heard his story in a variety of ways but this book was standout, a biography told through the eyes of his closest friends, ex loves, his boyhood friends and his critics. A well rounded telling of the man whom I admire so much, those who knew him were not afraid to speak of him as he was, warts and all.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great, comprehensive biography of the beautiful tragic life of Jack Kerouac that adds a hell of a lot to the experience of reading his novels. The biography is built around accounts by the people who knew him which adds a personal touch but at times can cause the narrative to meander as it tries to fit between the different quotes

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful book about a great poet (the term writer is not fitting) told in the words of people who not just knew him but loved him and hated him, lived and died with him. must read if you're a true fan of kerouac, like i am.

[Michael Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A most excellent book with tons of interviews with people who knew Kerouac intimately. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy Kerouac's work and other "beat" writers.

[Jack Goodstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Keroac's friends, lovers and acquaintances wax eloquently at times not very coherently about the man they thought they knew. Hopefully from the mass of testimony some sort of truth emerges.

[Ronald Gregor · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best bios about Kerouac.

[Carlos Escobedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a sad life! success was the worst thing that could have happened to him. his tragic life story is very compelling and puzzling. I really enjoyed the oral history style of this book

[Craig Spraggon · Rating 3 out of 5]

If your going to read a biography of Kerouac it might as well be this one ... but I wonder if perhaps its better to not know the story behind the stories and just let the novels sing by themselves.

[Angela Hurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book let's you dive deeper into the"Beat Generation" than anything I've come across.

I love this book! I found this book when i was 15 at a Barnes and Noble. I lost the book part way through and had a really hard time finding it. I was so excited to find it on Amazon and finish the tour through Jack Kerouac's life. Reading through it this time was a much more enriching experience. I was able to stop and dive into the lives of each character in the book and get a deeper understanding of the entire generation and all of the back stories. I also now realize, I don't like Jack Kerouac as a person, but i understand him better. He's just not quite who i thought he was, none of them were. Except maybe Allen. I'd say he was the one true Beat.