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Off the Road: My Years With Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg
The wife of Neal Cassady describes her life in the American Beat subculture, her marriage to Cassady and love affair with Jack Kerouac, and her relationship with Allen Ginsberg
436 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1990
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3976 people want to read
About the author
Carolyn Cassady
14 books22 followersCarolyn Elizabeth Robinson Cassady was a memoirist/ American writer associated with the Beat Generation through her marriage to Neal Cassady and her friendships with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other Beat figures. She became a frequent character in the works of Jack Kerouac and became a prominent figure in documentaries, movies, lectures, books, and events discussing the legacy of the Beat Generation Movement.
Ms. Cassady, whom Jerry Cimino, director of the Beat Museum in San Francisco, called “the grande dame of the Beat Generation,” was a central figure in the real-life circle of friends whose travels across the country in search of kicks and revelation were immortalized in “On the Road.” She was the inspiration for the character Camille, the second wife of Dean Moriarty, the “wild yea-saying overburst of American joy” who makes the novel go go go. Dean Moriarty was based on Neal Cassady, her husband during the period recounted in the novel.
For a woman in the 1940s and ’50s, this was not an easy role. While her male peers, including her husband, celebrated the freedoms of sex, drugs, literature and the open road, Ms. Cassady was by turns an eager participant and a dissenting adult, the one who kept the utilities on, raised the children and watched with dismay as the next generation of young men emulated the self-destructive impulses of the last.
Ms. Cassady, whom Jerry Cimino, director of the Beat Museum in San Francisco, called “the grande dame of the Beat Generation,” was a central figure in the real-life circle of friends whose travels across the country in search of kicks and revelation were immortalized in “On the Road.” She was the inspiration for the character Camille, the second wife of Dean Moriarty, the “wild yea-saying overburst of American joy” who makes the novel go go go. Dean Moriarty was based on Neal Cassady, her husband during the period recounted in the novel.
For a woman in the 1940s and ’50s, this was not an easy role. While her male peers, including her husband, celebrated the freedoms of sex, drugs, literature and the open road, Ms. Cassady was by turns an eager participant and a dissenting adult, the one who kept the utilities on, raised the children and watched with dismay as the next generation of young men emulated the self-destructive impulses of the last.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 119 reviews
November 11, 2019
Insights into the lives and personalities of the Beat heavyweights from Carolyn's unique perspective. I was at times disturbed by Neal and Jack's repeated indiscretions (to put it mildly) and her tolerance of them. For those interested in Beat history, there is a lot here that could not be found elsewhere. Some background in Kerouac's major works would be helpful. William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Michael McClure, Lenore Kandel, Henry Miller, Ken Kesey and other author/poets play roles in the saga.
June 3, 2015
I read this book last year, but still keep a copy in the passenger door shelf of my car because it is one I can easily dip in and out of when traffic to or from work has gridlocked and I get a chance to pull over and wait it out (Note: I do not read and drive, in case you were worried.)
When I was in my mid-teens, I simply adored Jack Kerouac's writing. I could not get enough of it. His books always promised a sense of freedom and symbolised a defiance of whatever convention seemed to bug me at the time. And how could I not love the writing that inspired so many of my other cultural heroes? It didn't come easy at that time to criticise Kerouac's writing for the sexism and blatant promotion of opportunism that is the foundation of Sal's and Dean's exploits.
Off the Road, which is the story of Carolyn Cassady, Neal Cassady's wife (well, one of them), offers a counterpart to the stories of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. It holds up a mirror to the romanticised notion of the Beats and offers a somewhat more balanced insight to both the man who would be immortalised as Dean Moriarty in On the Road and the man who would create him as a literary hero.
Cassady gives quite an honest and to-the-point account of what lead her to become in volved with Neal Cassady, their ensuing relationship, and the events that have lead her to abandon the life of a society dropout. On occasion, her narration is funny, at other times it come across as bitter, though this arguably is justified.
What struck me most is the level of naivete that she displayed at the beginning of her relationship with Neal. There were quite a few moments that caught me rolling my eyes in disbelief. However, I guess that so would she having the benefit of hindsight. What Off the Road did really well for me was to portray the double standards that build the basis of On the Road - and which are not mentioned by Kerouac.
What I mean is that, as much as On the Road raves on about the aspirations of being an independent single-minded carefree human being, it never mentions that Dean/Neal and his friends relied heavily on the goodwill and hard work of their family and friends.
Review first added at BookLikes:
http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/...
When I was in my mid-teens, I simply adored Jack Kerouac's writing. I could not get enough of it. His books always promised a sense of freedom and symbolised a defiance of whatever convention seemed to bug me at the time. And how could I not love the writing that inspired so many of my other cultural heroes? It didn't come easy at that time to criticise Kerouac's writing for the sexism and blatant promotion of opportunism that is the foundation of Sal's and Dean's exploits.
Off the Road, which is the story of Carolyn Cassady, Neal Cassady's wife (well, one of them), offers a counterpart to the stories of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. It holds up a mirror to the romanticised notion of the Beats and offers a somewhat more balanced insight to both the man who would be immortalised as Dean Moriarty in On the Road and the man who would create him as a literary hero.
Cassady gives quite an honest and to-the-point account of what lead her to become in volved with Neal Cassady, their ensuing relationship, and the events that have lead her to abandon the life of a society dropout. On occasion, her narration is funny, at other times it come across as bitter, though this arguably is justified.
What struck me most is the level of naivete that she displayed at the beginning of her relationship with Neal. There were quite a few moments that caught me rolling my eyes in disbelief. However, I guess that so would she having the benefit of hindsight. What Off the Road did really well for me was to portray the double standards that build the basis of On the Road - and which are not mentioned by Kerouac.
What I mean is that, as much as On the Road raves on about the aspirations of being an independent single-minded carefree human being, it never mentions that Dean/Neal and his friends relied heavily on the goodwill and hard work of their family and friends.
Review first added at BookLikes:
http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/...
August 11, 2009
It’s hard not to get caught up in the romance of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady travelling across America in the 1950s. I keep thinking I’ll grow out of my fascination with Beat writers, but I haven’t yet. However, Carolyn Cassady’s memoir presents a starkly different perspective on Beat history: her story fills in the ‘inbetween’ times; a life of not being on the road, but at home with children and a real life.
In other books about Kerouac et al, both Neal and Carolyn are typically described in broad strokes: Neal was a sex maniac imbecile and Carolyn the pathetic idiot who tolerated him. In fact, Carolyn (I’ll forsake formality and refer to her by her first name, to save confusion) was educated, down-to-earth and clearly intelligent. Neal was a voracious reader, who had real potential as a writer, but instead excelled at the manual labour jobs he took to support his family.
While Carolyn is often left out of core Beat history, she clearly had close relationships with both Kerouac and Ginsberg. Off the Road recounts in detail (wow, a lot of detail… more on that later) her memories of the 40s, 50s and 60s in their company. The book is filled with amazing nuggets of information that I haven’t encountered in any other history of the Beat era. My favourite: Kerouac turned down an offer from Warner Brothers to adapt On the Road into a movie starring him and Neal, if he wanted the part.
For the Beat geek, it’s a more than worthwhile read. However, if you are not the type to break into seal claps at a mention of Michael McClure, it may just be a litany of descriptions of people you don’t know or care about.
Off the Road is, by definition, a very subdued read. It’s hard not to feel desperately sorry for Carolyn as Neal repeatedly runs away to have adventures, cheats on her countless times and generally saps all of her energy. It is, in part, a story of how difficult it was to be a young mother in an unstable relationship in the mid part of the twentieth century. Carolyn’s potential for career progression or simple autonomy is repeatedly submerged by the demands of childcare and Nealcare.
Did I mention the detail? Oh yeah, the book is long and, without any real structure beyond simple chronology, it becomes a slog to the end. My three-star review is a little generous, since I didn’t find it an especially enjoyable read. Nonetheless, Carolyn’s story is an interesting one, and this is an important piece of Beat history.
In other books about Kerouac et al, both Neal and Carolyn are typically described in broad strokes: Neal was a sex maniac imbecile and Carolyn the pathetic idiot who tolerated him. In fact, Carolyn (I’ll forsake formality and refer to her by her first name, to save confusion) was educated, down-to-earth and clearly intelligent. Neal was a voracious reader, who had real potential as a writer, but instead excelled at the manual labour jobs he took to support his family.
While Carolyn is often left out of core Beat history, she clearly had close relationships with both Kerouac and Ginsberg. Off the Road recounts in detail (wow, a lot of detail… more on that later) her memories of the 40s, 50s and 60s in their company. The book is filled with amazing nuggets of information that I haven’t encountered in any other history of the Beat era. My favourite: Kerouac turned down an offer from Warner Brothers to adapt On the Road into a movie starring him and Neal, if he wanted the part.
For the Beat geek, it’s a more than worthwhile read. However, if you are not the type to break into seal claps at a mention of Michael McClure, it may just be a litany of descriptions of people you don’t know or care about.
Off the Road is, by definition, a very subdued read. It’s hard not to feel desperately sorry for Carolyn as Neal repeatedly runs away to have adventures, cheats on her countless times and generally saps all of her energy. It is, in part, a story of how difficult it was to be a young mother in an unstable relationship in the mid part of the twentieth century. Carolyn’s potential for career progression or simple autonomy is repeatedly submerged by the demands of childcare and Nealcare.
Did I mention the detail? Oh yeah, the book is long and, without any real structure beyond simple chronology, it becomes a slog to the end. My three-star review is a little generous, since I didn’t find it an especially enjoyable read. Nonetheless, Carolyn’s story is an interesting one, and this is an important piece of Beat history.
June 9, 2012
It's a good thing the men of the Beat Generation were good writers because for the most part, they sucked as husbands and fathers.
December 15, 2014
I read this book immediately after "On the Road". It added another dimension to Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty) such as his belief in the teachings of Edgar Cayce and the A.R.E., his homosexual tendencies, and his involvement with Ken Kesey (author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and the Merry Pranksters. Neal was wild and fun but equally inconsiderate and possibly mentally-ill. I can't believe she stuck with him through (most of) it. I hesitate to call her a doormat though because it's not like women with 2 children living in the 40s and 50s had a ton of options. She was just trying to look out for her kids. She's a smart lady too.
December 19, 2012
I found this book really interesting. It started with Carolyn meeting Neal and ended with his ashes being scattered on Jack's grave. I think I liked Carolyn better than Joyce though she was definitely a little strange. While her writing was very emotional and insightful there was definitely something or rather sometimes when it felt a little dishonest about it. Sometimes she'd talk at great lengths about her drug experiences and affairs, and then she'd spend ages talking about what a prude and how conservative she was. There seemed to be a lot of internal conflicts. There were some really interesting things in this book. The most interesting I think was how much pregnancy and children change lives. Carolyn stopped doing anything fun with Neal, except for rare occasions, once the kids were born, and he went and worked his ass off on the railways for years on end. It was interesting to see how normal and poor they were in many ways, struggling to make ends meet. At times it didn't really read like any kind of subculture, and then there were the visits by Jack or Alan and things got strange and interesting for awhile. And then it'd be back to taking the kids back to Ballet. Carolyn kept talking about how much Neal wanted to please people, and used this as her excuse for his behaviour. Of course she also turned this around and used it as her excuse for starting to sleep with Jack. In many ways it seemed like her feelings for Jack became stronger than her feelings for Neal. But it seemed like because of her kids she couldn't do anything about it. There was a lot I learned from reading this book. The role of family and kids I think was the most interesting. The 2nd was the way the beats moved into hippies. Something I'd not quite been able to visualise. But the last 3rd of this book was devoted to that and I found it really interesting to see how things changed. It also made me very sad, to see such interesting and talented men throwing away their lives to booze and drugs. I think the book made an interesting counterpoint to Keraouc's novels. Of course the writing style and insight is nowhere near his, but it's interesting nonetheless. It also made me wish that LuAnne had written something about her experiences, as she seemed to be more of a wild child, but then I guess like Neal she was too busy living life to try and write anything down. I think I have one or two more of Kerouac's books to read, and then I'm going to go back and read the Original Scroll. I have discovered that I really do like the beats.
April 16, 2022
For those of you who don't know who Carolyn Cassady is, she was married to Neal Cassady, also known as 'Dean Moriarty', the protagonist of Kerouac's classic On the Road.
This year is the Kerouac centennial (he was born in 1922) and so before reading On the Road again, for the third time, I thought I would get Carolyn's assessment of the two men she sometimes calls 'my two husbands' (Neal and Jack) before charging into the rapids of Kerouac's magnum opus.
Well, this book lacks the frenetic excitement and exuberance of Kerouac's masterpiece, but it makes up for it in scrupulous detail and accuracy. In short, On the Road gives you the romantic side of Cassady (and a rather fictional portrayal of Jack by himself) whereas in this book he is exposed to us, all bare bones and all. How much of this book is true / accurate? Well, we have to take her Carolyn at her word - that is to say, that her memory of these events and these conversations are accurate. If you want to have a better idea of who Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg were, I recommend checking out Kerouac's On the Road, the great book on LuAnne Henderson called One & Only (edited by Gerry Nicosia and Anne-Marie Santos, LuAnne's daughter), and this great but comprehensive memoir, Off the Road (in addition to reading the large number of biographies that exist on all of them). You will get a much better picture of what kinds of people they were.
Reading about Cassady and Kerouac for so long, admiring one for a while, then being turned off by other behaviors, and then beginning to like them again, I realized what my problem was: I was compartmentalizing human beings into a 'good' or 'bad' bucket category. Life, and human beings, are never that simple. They are neither, or another way to say it is, they are indeed both!
I idolized Kerouac for many years, for several reasons: 1) he worked extremely hard at and was devoted to his art, i.e. writing; 2) he tried not to deliberately hurt anyone, including animals (unfortunately he ended up hurting some people badly, although unintentionally, such as his own daughter Jan Kerouac whom he never even acknowledged as being his actual daughter); 3) he never gave up on just being himself, never trying to be someone else for the world or society; 4) his mystical writings, especially on Buddhism, indicate a brilliant probing mind trying to find out some of the answers to the big questions in life. However, when I read several biographies on him, and realized all of his problems - his alcoholism, the cowardly way he abandoned his 2nd wife and daughter Jan, his self-destructive nastiness at others during his drunken binges, and finally some of his ugly, redneck political views (probably Memere's influence partly) which he espoused in his grouchy final years (the 1960s), I was shocked by this other side of Kerouac which I really did not like at all. LuAnne Henderson talks about it at one point in One & Only too, after meeting Jack for the first time in many years and noticing the change.
The same applies with Cassady. His womanizing was relentless and reckless as his way of conning people including friends was too. In this sense, he truly did seem to harbor some psychopathic tendencies. He was also a car thief, and in his youth, a brilliant one, at that. On the other hand, I realized largely through reading this book, by his wife Carolyn, that he did indeed have many redeeming qualities too (some of which Kerouac lacked): 1) he could also be extremely kind and compassionate towards others (something he shared with Kerouac); 2) he was always committed to improving his mind and his position in life (this he had to work harder at than Kerouac because he grew up on Skid Row in the streets of Denver); 3) he always tried to be a good provider for his family and WAS up until his unfortunate arrest in the late 1950s; 4) he inspired others and when he was not conning other people, he was constantly giving himself to others; 5) he was a very good father to his children when he was around (the incredibly positive way that ALL of his children remember him and talk fondly of him speaks testimonies...) and so on.
All of this to say that, Kerouac and Cassady were just like all of us in one major way: they were human. Not everyone is equally good or equally bad; most of us are somewhere in between and they are no exception.
This great book takes us through many of the ups and downs of the Cassady family: the early years when Neal was travelling around with Jack and LuAnne (as recounted famously in On the Road), the numerous marriages, divorces and annulments and trips to Mexico, the times Kerouac came and stayed with them, first in San Francisco (this is when Carolyn and Jack became lovers for a brief time) and then later in San Jose. This book also takes you through the difficult years, when Carolyn was trying to keep an eye on Neal, figure out where he was, what he was doing, but more importantly and understandably she was more focused on where the next meal was coming from .... for the family. When you have an exciting, brilliant but mostly irresponsible husband, then most of the burden of keeping the family together falls on the wife's shoulders, automatically. Somehow, she managed to keep them together for as long as possible. After Neal's arrest and eventual release from prison, she decides to divorce him (after coming home to discover that Neal and some others have trashed their house while she was away).
She thinks that by freeing him of all family ties and responsibilities, he can now go ahead and live out his life, as Neal Cassady, as Dean Moriarty, as Sir Speed Limit. But, ultimately, it was family that he wanted and it was through his family that he was mostly deeply connected and rooted. Once that tie had been broken, then destruction was the obvious fate awaiting him at the end of the street.
The last 40-50 pages were hard to read; the story becomes so sad. The drugs, by this stage, have taken their toll. It's not all the marijuana he smoked that did the damage I believe; it's everything else he took, which was mostly amphetamines and LSD. In his final days, he seemed so confused, hallucinating part of the time, and his death by the tracks near San Miguel de Allende, not only seems like a perfect 'romantic' end to a beat hero, but more importantly and some what chillingly as the Cassadys relate on the final page, it came as a great relief to them all. It was time for his 'release.'
Neal Cassady was no saint. He brought much joy into the lives of some, but was also known to betray or con others. Ultimately though, he was a man who lived life to the full, something which Kerouac himself both admired and regretted not doing himself. Kerouac once wrote about how he wrote about his own life and other people's lives in great detail like Proust and Balzac before him, whereas Neal was busy just living it. This was the main message I came away with by the end; it is great to read books, it is great to have dreams and build on them, it is great to have a successful career..... BUT, don't forget that life is secretly passing you by, as you do it. Cassady knew that one day he was going to die, perhaps he knew he wouldn't have a long life, but he managed to try and live every day like it might be his last and it is that spirit which Kerouac captured beautifully in his stunning experiments with spontaneous prose, and which Carolyn fondly remembers and celebrates in this gem of a book, Off the Road.
This year is the Kerouac centennial (he was born in 1922) and so before reading On the Road again, for the third time, I thought I would get Carolyn's assessment of the two men she sometimes calls 'my two husbands' (Neal and Jack) before charging into the rapids of Kerouac's magnum opus.
Well, this book lacks the frenetic excitement and exuberance of Kerouac's masterpiece, but it makes up for it in scrupulous detail and accuracy. In short, On the Road gives you the romantic side of Cassady (and a rather fictional portrayal of Jack by himself) whereas in this book he is exposed to us, all bare bones and all. How much of this book is true / accurate? Well, we have to take her Carolyn at her word - that is to say, that her memory of these events and these conversations are accurate. If you want to have a better idea of who Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg were, I recommend checking out Kerouac's On the Road, the great book on LuAnne Henderson called One & Only (edited by Gerry Nicosia and Anne-Marie Santos, LuAnne's daughter), and this great but comprehensive memoir, Off the Road (in addition to reading the large number of biographies that exist on all of them). You will get a much better picture of what kinds of people they were.
Reading about Cassady and Kerouac for so long, admiring one for a while, then being turned off by other behaviors, and then beginning to like them again, I realized what my problem was: I was compartmentalizing human beings into a 'good' or 'bad' bucket category. Life, and human beings, are never that simple. They are neither, or another way to say it is, they are indeed both!
I idolized Kerouac for many years, for several reasons: 1) he worked extremely hard at and was devoted to his art, i.e. writing; 2) he tried not to deliberately hurt anyone, including animals (unfortunately he ended up hurting some people badly, although unintentionally, such as his own daughter Jan Kerouac whom he never even acknowledged as being his actual daughter); 3) he never gave up on just being himself, never trying to be someone else for the world or society; 4) his mystical writings, especially on Buddhism, indicate a brilliant probing mind trying to find out some of the answers to the big questions in life. However, when I read several biographies on him, and realized all of his problems - his alcoholism, the cowardly way he abandoned his 2nd wife and daughter Jan, his self-destructive nastiness at others during his drunken binges, and finally some of his ugly, redneck political views (probably Memere's influence partly) which he espoused in his grouchy final years (the 1960s), I was shocked by this other side of Kerouac which I really did not like at all. LuAnne Henderson talks about it at one point in One & Only too, after meeting Jack for the first time in many years and noticing the change.
The same applies with Cassady. His womanizing was relentless and reckless as his way of conning people including friends was too. In this sense, he truly did seem to harbor some psychopathic tendencies. He was also a car thief, and in his youth, a brilliant one, at that. On the other hand, I realized largely through reading this book, by his wife Carolyn, that he did indeed have many redeeming qualities too (some of which Kerouac lacked): 1) he could also be extremely kind and compassionate towards others (something he shared with Kerouac); 2) he was always committed to improving his mind and his position in life (this he had to work harder at than Kerouac because he grew up on Skid Row in the streets of Denver); 3) he always tried to be a good provider for his family and WAS up until his unfortunate arrest in the late 1950s; 4) he inspired others and when he was not conning other people, he was constantly giving himself to others; 5) he was a very good father to his children when he was around (the incredibly positive way that ALL of his children remember him and talk fondly of him speaks testimonies...) and so on.
All of this to say that, Kerouac and Cassady were just like all of us in one major way: they were human. Not everyone is equally good or equally bad; most of us are somewhere in between and they are no exception.
This great book takes us through many of the ups and downs of the Cassady family: the early years when Neal was travelling around with Jack and LuAnne (as recounted famously in On the Road), the numerous marriages, divorces and annulments and trips to Mexico, the times Kerouac came and stayed with them, first in San Francisco (this is when Carolyn and Jack became lovers for a brief time) and then later in San Jose. This book also takes you through the difficult years, when Carolyn was trying to keep an eye on Neal, figure out where he was, what he was doing, but more importantly and understandably she was more focused on where the next meal was coming from .... for the family. When you have an exciting, brilliant but mostly irresponsible husband, then most of the burden of keeping the family together falls on the wife's shoulders, automatically. Somehow, she managed to keep them together for as long as possible. After Neal's arrest and eventual release from prison, she decides to divorce him (after coming home to discover that Neal and some others have trashed their house while she was away).
She thinks that by freeing him of all family ties and responsibilities, he can now go ahead and live out his life, as Neal Cassady, as Dean Moriarty, as Sir Speed Limit. But, ultimately, it was family that he wanted and it was through his family that he was mostly deeply connected and rooted. Once that tie had been broken, then destruction was the obvious fate awaiting him at the end of the street.
The last 40-50 pages were hard to read; the story becomes so sad. The drugs, by this stage, have taken their toll. It's not all the marijuana he smoked that did the damage I believe; it's everything else he took, which was mostly amphetamines and LSD. In his final days, he seemed so confused, hallucinating part of the time, and his death by the tracks near San Miguel de Allende, not only seems like a perfect 'romantic' end to a beat hero, but more importantly and some what chillingly as the Cassadys relate on the final page, it came as a great relief to them all. It was time for his 'release.'
Neal Cassady was no saint. He brought much joy into the lives of some, but was also known to betray or con others. Ultimately though, he was a man who lived life to the full, something which Kerouac himself both admired and regretted not doing himself. Kerouac once wrote about how he wrote about his own life and other people's lives in great detail like Proust and Balzac before him, whereas Neal was busy just living it. This was the main message I came away with by the end; it is great to read books, it is great to have dreams and build on them, it is great to have a successful career..... BUT, don't forget that life is secretly passing you by, as you do it. Cassady knew that one day he was going to die, perhaps he knew he wouldn't have a long life, but he managed to try and live every day like it might be his last and it is that spirit which Kerouac captured beautifully in his stunning experiments with spontaneous prose, and which Carolyn fondly remembers and celebrates in this gem of a book, Off the Road.
October 4, 2020
Subtitled “Twenty years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg,” Carolyn Cassady’s self-effacing autobiography of her life among the beats in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s focuses largely on her larger-than-life husband, Neal Cassady, and his propensity for licentious self-destruction. Published in 1990, her second chronicle concerning these events might be summarized by the acerbic cliché, you can take the boy out of the gutter but you can’t take the gutter out of the boy. But that cryptic observation, however accurate, takes all the fun and pathos out of the tale.
Given that we, as consumers, have been besieged for decades from every side by increasingly more voyeuristic self-aggrandizing “information” and “entertainment,” from the likes of tabloid newspapers, rap music, “reality television,” poor-pick-your-color trash interviews parading across endless toilet radio and TV talk shows in which everyone is encouraged to find their own lowest common denominator, to endless “real” police chases involving drunken low-lives putting other people at risk, endless lethal “real” legal reenactments, one might ask what’s the big deal? But in that bygone era immediately following WW2, public voyeurism was limited largely to “Queen for a Day,” in which miserable welfare moms degraded themselves publicly for prizes on TV, and Joe Pyne belligerently interviewing assorted hapless nutcases as well as every stripe of celebrity less conservative than he willing to verbally spar with him. Then, ON THE ROAD, published in 1957, abruptly gave poverty/penury, intoxication and irreverent irresponsibility the allure it holds today, albeit with a certain literary charm notably absent from the raging contemporary variety.
Neal Cassady under the pseudonym of Dean Moriarty was just barely fictionalized by Jack Kerouac in ON THE ROAD. He appears in most of Kerouac’s later work as Cody Pomeray. Allan Ginsberg, also Neal Cassady’s lover, dedicated HOWL to him. Ken Kesey used Cassady as the inspiration for Randle McMurphy, the protagonist in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST. Cassady, as himself, appears as the infamous school bus driver in Tom Wolfe’s nonfiction account of the Merry Pranksters, THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST. Cassady’s persona or his name appears in over a dozen films and many recorded songs. Quite a testament for a poor-boy libertine and wannabe author who died half a century ago. His only published work during his lifetime was a small collection of poetry with Kerouac. His intended magnum opus, THE FIRST THIRD, was left unfinished, appropriately at the first third. (Although since his death much of his copious correspondence has seen publication.) So Cassady was, in every sense, the poster-boy for self-indulgence-as-a-way-of-life and his struggles between supporting his growing family and his consuming need for external stimulation comprise much of OFF THE ROAD.
Carolyn Cassady, Neal’s stay-at-home wife, unlike her notorious husband, came from a stable, if cold, middle class family and was college educated. Her circle of friends while studying in Denver included several brash townies, and when the smooth talking lively Neal Cassady came into her life there, she was swept away by his charm to the degree that she gutted out their marriage through his many infidelities, accelerating substance abuse, constant prevarications, having three children along the way. She also became Jack Kerouac’s lover at her husband’s encouragement, although their ménage à trois was often wracked by painful jealousy on behalf of all of them—her for being excluded from their world, and they for her affections.
The tale is the ups and downs of her life among the wild bunch, her introduction to various recreational drugs, her struggle with her love for a man for whom she could never be enough, as well as insights into some of the names in the “beat generation” as Allan Ginsburg christened them from the term coined by Kerouac. Along the way she is overly exposed to many of her husband’s lovers, from Luanne, the underage sado-masochistic first wife, to Diane, the self-deluding bigamous third wife, to the tragically suicidal Natalie Jackson, to the insanely loyal Ann Murray, to the unhinged and barely coherent J.B. Oddly, many of these women courted her friendship never accepting her open resentment that they were destroying her marriage. The book chronicles her courtship with Neal, her abandonment during Neal’s abrupt road trips, the various self-awareness/spiritual pursuits upon which the core group embarked, Neal's imprisonment for offering a joint to a pair of narcs, to the inevitable destruction of Neal with the Merry Pranksters and Jack when the long overdue success of ON THE ROAD overwhelmed them both, in very different ways.
Neal’s many facets are portrayed, from his willingness to work hard for long hours to his need for self abasement into which Carolyn was unwittingly drawn to the lure for a spiritual dicipline. The author’s prose is crisp and to the point, but without Kerouac’s poetry, proclaiming another, altogether different, truth. Whereas the guys wanted “kicks,” Carolyn wanted stability. Neal attempted to straddle the fence, living in both worlds, burning the candle at both ends and in the middle, until a myriad legal problems and a succumbing to his demons killed him a day before his 43rd birthday. The overly sensitive Kerouac died within a year in self imposed exile, having drunk himself to death at age 47. There is a bittersweet humor throughout the book, as in the lengths two of Neal’s lovers go hounding his wife for his ashes, the absurdities of Neal’s foolproof system at the racetrack which depletes their saving’s account, or Ginsberg’s flagrant irreverence during a spiritual gathering in their home. Whereas Jack Kerouac breathed life into the myth of the beat lifestyle, Carolyn Cassady took a more journalistic approach, relating the ups and downs, the twists along the way, the small joys and the big heartbreaks Kerouac’s myth enshrines.
Given that we, as consumers, have been besieged for decades from every side by increasingly more voyeuristic self-aggrandizing “information” and “entertainment,” from the likes of tabloid newspapers, rap music, “reality television,” poor-pick-your-color trash interviews parading across endless toilet radio and TV talk shows in which everyone is encouraged to find their own lowest common denominator, to endless “real” police chases involving drunken low-lives putting other people at risk, endless lethal “real” legal reenactments, one might ask what’s the big deal? But in that bygone era immediately following WW2, public voyeurism was limited largely to “Queen for a Day,” in which miserable welfare moms degraded themselves publicly for prizes on TV, and Joe Pyne belligerently interviewing assorted hapless nutcases as well as every stripe of celebrity less conservative than he willing to verbally spar with him. Then, ON THE ROAD, published in 1957, abruptly gave poverty/penury, intoxication and irreverent irresponsibility the allure it holds today, albeit with a certain literary charm notably absent from the raging contemporary variety.
Neal Cassady under the pseudonym of Dean Moriarty was just barely fictionalized by Jack Kerouac in ON THE ROAD. He appears in most of Kerouac’s later work as Cody Pomeray. Allan Ginsberg, also Neal Cassady’s lover, dedicated HOWL to him. Ken Kesey used Cassady as the inspiration for Randle McMurphy, the protagonist in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST. Cassady, as himself, appears as the infamous school bus driver in Tom Wolfe’s nonfiction account of the Merry Pranksters, THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST. Cassady’s persona or his name appears in over a dozen films and many recorded songs. Quite a testament for a poor-boy libertine and wannabe author who died half a century ago. His only published work during his lifetime was a small collection of poetry with Kerouac. His intended magnum opus, THE FIRST THIRD, was left unfinished, appropriately at the first third. (Although since his death much of his copious correspondence has seen publication.) So Cassady was, in every sense, the poster-boy for self-indulgence-as-a-way-of-life and his struggles between supporting his growing family and his consuming need for external stimulation comprise much of OFF THE ROAD.
Carolyn Cassady, Neal’s stay-at-home wife, unlike her notorious husband, came from a stable, if cold, middle class family and was college educated. Her circle of friends while studying in Denver included several brash townies, and when the smooth talking lively Neal Cassady came into her life there, she was swept away by his charm to the degree that she gutted out their marriage through his many infidelities, accelerating substance abuse, constant prevarications, having three children along the way. She also became Jack Kerouac’s lover at her husband’s encouragement, although their ménage à trois was often wracked by painful jealousy on behalf of all of them—her for being excluded from their world, and they for her affections.
The tale is the ups and downs of her life among the wild bunch, her introduction to various recreational drugs, her struggle with her love for a man for whom she could never be enough, as well as insights into some of the names in the “beat generation” as Allan Ginsburg christened them from the term coined by Kerouac. Along the way she is overly exposed to many of her husband’s lovers, from Luanne, the underage sado-masochistic first wife, to Diane, the self-deluding bigamous third wife, to the tragically suicidal Natalie Jackson, to the insanely loyal Ann Murray, to the unhinged and barely coherent J.B. Oddly, many of these women courted her friendship never accepting her open resentment that they were destroying her marriage. The book chronicles her courtship with Neal, her abandonment during Neal’s abrupt road trips, the various self-awareness/spiritual pursuits upon which the core group embarked, Neal's imprisonment for offering a joint to a pair of narcs, to the inevitable destruction of Neal with the Merry Pranksters and Jack when the long overdue success of ON THE ROAD overwhelmed them both, in very different ways.
Neal’s many facets are portrayed, from his willingness to work hard for long hours to his need for self abasement into which Carolyn was unwittingly drawn to the lure for a spiritual dicipline. The author’s prose is crisp and to the point, but without Kerouac’s poetry, proclaiming another, altogether different, truth. Whereas the guys wanted “kicks,” Carolyn wanted stability. Neal attempted to straddle the fence, living in both worlds, burning the candle at both ends and in the middle, until a myriad legal problems and a succumbing to his demons killed him a day before his 43rd birthday. The overly sensitive Kerouac died within a year in self imposed exile, having drunk himself to death at age 47. There is a bittersweet humor throughout the book, as in the lengths two of Neal’s lovers go hounding his wife for his ashes, the absurdities of Neal’s foolproof system at the racetrack which depletes their saving’s account, or Ginsberg’s flagrant irreverence during a spiritual gathering in their home. Whereas Jack Kerouac breathed life into the myth of the beat lifestyle, Carolyn Cassady took a more journalistic approach, relating the ups and downs, the twists along the way, the small joys and the big heartbreaks Kerouac’s myth enshrines.
August 7, 2009
Carolyn Cassady wrote this book about her marriage to Neal Cassady and her relationships with many beat writers, especially Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. I read this in a couple of days and never got bored with it. I've seen several reviews on her calling her a doormat. I think that's applying today's mindset to what people did fifty years ago. Also, why judge her at all? I didn't get the idea she wrote the book to justify her actions, she seemed to just want to tell what happened. I'm really curious about Neal Cassady. What was the attraction? He had lots of women that loved him and kept loving him, though abuse, infidelity, bigamy. He had men that loved him. Talented men who seemed to think he was at least as talented, if not more, than they were, especially Kerouac. Why? Was he? He wrote one book. What was the big attraction of this felon, druggie, unreliable partner, railroad man, tire shop man, drifter, liar--charismatic genius? I really want to know what kept drawing them all back for more. He seems like an inigma. I want to know more.
April 14, 2021
This book really captured the day-to-day life with Neal, Kerouac and, to a lesser extent, Ginsburg and Burroughs. It's a disturbing life, certainly not one I'd want, rife with addiction, mental illness, narcissism, and codependency. I don't get the allure of the beats, maybe they were like such a bunch of freaks in the 50's that they were given attention disproportionate to their talent.
So, while I don't like them as people and think they're overrated as writers, I did gain sympathy for Neal through Carolyn's telling of his and their life together.
So, while I don't like them as people and think they're overrated as writers, I did gain sympathy for Neal through Carolyn's telling of his and their life together.
May 12, 2018
In short: men are awful.
A couple of months back, I read Jack Kerouac's On the Road for university, expecting that I would like it. I did not. In fact, I really, severely, bitterly disliked it, as evidenced by the charming review I wrote of it here. In a subsequent seminar on the Beat Generation, I had a chat with one of my lecturers about my hatred of Kerouac, especially his misogyny and racism, and he recommended that I read this: a Beat Generation memoir by a woman author which basically shows the events of On the Road from the other side, minus the blatant misogyny and racism. Carolyn Cassady - represented in On the Road as Camille, Dean Moriarty's second (I think? It's easy to lose track) wife who he constantly leaves behind to travel with Sal and cheats on REPEATEDLY - was the real-life wife of "Beat hero" Neal Cassady (aka Dean Moriarty), and through him she knew Kerouac (with whom she had a prolonged affair) and Allen Ginsberg . She was therefore right at the heart of the Beat Generation, but, as a woman among "geniuses", has not received anywhere near as much attention as the mostly horrible men around her (Ginsberg was OK. I have nothing against Ginsberg). As I am always here for reading the stories of previous neglected women, this book sounded like it would be the perfect companion to my American Literature module and the Kerouac essay I for some reason decided to write, so I took it out of the library at the first opportunity. All things considered, it was a really good read?
Have I changed my mind on Jack Kerouac and On the Road at all since reading this? No. If anything, I dislike both more, because when you see the "great adventures" of Kerouac and Cassady through Carolyn's essays you realise just how immature and irresponsible they are. Neal Cassady had three children with Carolyn (and more besides!) and went through several spells of financial difficulty yet still thought it would be a good idea to go off on jollies with his buddy Jack. Eh? And even when Neal was at home, he wasn't exactly very nice to Carolyn. I lost count of the amount of times Carolyn through him out and swore she would never take him back again. They even begin divorce proceedings at one point only to run stupidly back into each other's arms again. Carolyn's narrative voice also seemed largely critical of Neal to me, sounding incredibly exasperated as she recounted some of his exploits and clearly disapproving of many of the decisions he made. This is not a marriage memoir which is fondly or lovingly written; on the contrary, it recalls a lot of mistakes and misunderstandings and muddling through. I, personally, spent most of this book wondering what on earth Carolyn saw in Neal. She even complains of their sex life being lacklustre. However, for all of the struggles Neal forced her to endure, their marriage did bring Carolyn into contact with some interesting (if that's the right word) people. For that reason, despite its many frustrating moments, this is an entertaining memoir... even though it does go on and on and on and on and on.
I really must commend Carolyn Cassady on her scope and her memory. I can't imagine that there are many autobiographies or memoirs out there quite as detailed as this one. Given how novelistic this book is, reproducing conversations and reactions as well as major events, I don't imagine that all of it is completely accurate, with probably as much of it coming from Carolyn's imagination as her memory, but it certainly results in a damn good reproduction of the numerous people and places that made Carolyn's life what it was. Seriously, the attention to detail is extraordinary, and you really do finish this book feeling like you know the people who were in it. However, the downside is that reading it can feel absolutely endless. It doesn't cover that wide a time period, all things considered, but it easily spans 450 pages because of the sheer amount of information Carolyn crams into it. You get to learn all about how her house looks and read countless letters exchanged between Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg, and learn everything you could ever possibly want to know about Cayce (I forget his first name) and his philosophy of life. Carolyn truly leaves no stone unturned, which, whilst admirable, does make for a hell of a long book. If you are especially interested in the Beat Generation, I imagine that this could be an invaluable resource. As someone who isn't that interested in them, however, I must admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally reached the end.
All in all, I enjoyed reading this. It was good to gain more information about an author I'd previously criticised, his muses, and his inspirations, and to discover that I was right all along to hold the opinions that I did. Honestly? Kerouac doesn't come across that badly in here. He was clearly dear to Carolyn and I would say that she writes about him with more affection than she does Neal. That doesn't change his glaring faults, however, and, no matter how much Carolyn liked him, they were having an illicit affair under her husband's roof, which is a little questionable to say the least. I can't rightly criticise Neal Cassady for his infidelity without also flagging Carolyn's with Kerouac. The Beats just seemed to have a thing for sleeping with each other. Will I be reading any more Beat literature after this? Probably not. I've had enough of Kerouac and Cassady to last me a lifetime after this and a double load of On the Road, but I am glad to have read a reworking of the legend to a woman traditionally relegated to the shadows before giving up on this era of literature entirely. There are always two sides to a story, and it's always worth checking out both before you jump to conclusions. Off the Road certainly proved an enlightening and consolidatory read for me. If anyone else out there was equally disappointed/angry with On the Road for the same reasons as me, this is more than worth a read.
A couple of months back, I read Jack Kerouac's On the Road for university, expecting that I would like it. I did not. In fact, I really, severely, bitterly disliked it, as evidenced by the charming review I wrote of it here. In a subsequent seminar on the Beat Generation, I had a chat with one of my lecturers about my hatred of Kerouac, especially his misogyny and racism, and he recommended that I read this: a Beat Generation memoir by a woman author which basically shows the events of On the Road from the other side, minus the blatant misogyny and racism. Carolyn Cassady - represented in On the Road as Camille, Dean Moriarty's second (I think? It's easy to lose track) wife who he constantly leaves behind to travel with Sal and cheats on REPEATEDLY - was the real-life wife of "Beat hero" Neal Cassady (aka Dean Moriarty), and through him she knew Kerouac (with whom she had a prolonged affair) and Allen Ginsberg . She was therefore right at the heart of the Beat Generation, but, as a woman among "geniuses", has not received anywhere near as much attention as the mostly horrible men around her (Ginsberg was OK. I have nothing against Ginsberg). As I am always here for reading the stories of previous neglected women, this book sounded like it would be the perfect companion to my American Literature module and the Kerouac essay I for some reason decided to write, so I took it out of the library at the first opportunity. All things considered, it was a really good read?
Have I changed my mind on Jack Kerouac and On the Road at all since reading this? No. If anything, I dislike both more, because when you see the "great adventures" of Kerouac and Cassady through Carolyn's essays you realise just how immature and irresponsible they are. Neal Cassady had three children with Carolyn (and more besides!) and went through several spells of financial difficulty yet still thought it would be a good idea to go off on jollies with his buddy Jack. Eh? And even when Neal was at home, he wasn't exactly very nice to Carolyn. I lost count of the amount of times Carolyn through him out and swore she would never take him back again. They even begin divorce proceedings at one point only to run stupidly back into each other's arms again. Carolyn's narrative voice also seemed largely critical of Neal to me, sounding incredibly exasperated as she recounted some of his exploits and clearly disapproving of many of the decisions he made. This is not a marriage memoir which is fondly or lovingly written; on the contrary, it recalls a lot of mistakes and misunderstandings and muddling through. I, personally, spent most of this book wondering what on earth Carolyn saw in Neal. She even complains of their sex life being lacklustre. However, for all of the struggles Neal forced her to endure, their marriage did bring Carolyn into contact with some interesting (if that's the right word) people. For that reason, despite its many frustrating moments, this is an entertaining memoir... even though it does go on and on and on and on and on.
I really must commend Carolyn Cassady on her scope and her memory. I can't imagine that there are many autobiographies or memoirs out there quite as detailed as this one. Given how novelistic this book is, reproducing conversations and reactions as well as major events, I don't imagine that all of it is completely accurate, with probably as much of it coming from Carolyn's imagination as her memory, but it certainly results in a damn good reproduction of the numerous people and places that made Carolyn's life what it was. Seriously, the attention to detail is extraordinary, and you really do finish this book feeling like you know the people who were in it. However, the downside is that reading it can feel absolutely endless. It doesn't cover that wide a time period, all things considered, but it easily spans 450 pages because of the sheer amount of information Carolyn crams into it. You get to learn all about how her house looks and read countless letters exchanged between Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg, and learn everything you could ever possibly want to know about Cayce (I forget his first name) and his philosophy of life. Carolyn truly leaves no stone unturned, which, whilst admirable, does make for a hell of a long book. If you are especially interested in the Beat Generation, I imagine that this could be an invaluable resource. As someone who isn't that interested in them, however, I must admit that I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally reached the end.
All in all, I enjoyed reading this. It was good to gain more information about an author I'd previously criticised, his muses, and his inspirations, and to discover that I was right all along to hold the opinions that I did. Honestly? Kerouac doesn't come across that badly in here. He was clearly dear to Carolyn and I would say that she writes about him with more affection than she does Neal. That doesn't change his glaring faults, however, and, no matter how much Carolyn liked him, they were having an illicit affair under her husband's roof, which is a little questionable to say the least. I can't rightly criticise Neal Cassady for his infidelity without also flagging Carolyn's with Kerouac. The Beats just seemed to have a thing for sleeping with each other. Will I be reading any more Beat literature after this? Probably not. I've had enough of Kerouac and Cassady to last me a lifetime after this and a double load of On the Road, but I am glad to have read a reworking of the legend to a woman traditionally relegated to the shadows before giving up on this era of literature entirely. There are always two sides to a story, and it's always worth checking out both before you jump to conclusions. Off the Road certainly proved an enlightening and consolidatory read for me. If anyone else out there was equally disappointed/angry with On the Road for the same reasons as me, this is more than worth a read.
August 6, 2025
This reads like a horror story to me. The concept of being young and pregnant and your husband going away on a boys' trip only to come back with another wife who he's married bigamously and gotten pregnant - chilling. What CC admitted to withstanding over this 20-year period is remarkable and I frankly would have been too ashamed to share it with the world. Imagine having to publish the fact you caught your husband in bed with your close friend Allen Ginsberg not once but TWICE. Imagine getting Bell's Palsy because your man stresses you out that much. I literally get cold sweats at the thought of being so hopelessly in love with such a miscreant. Please God deliver me from such a fate.
I don't really ever read memoirs for reasons I won't go into but I will say this one was highly effective in comparing the three men in the title in a way that a conventional biography by any of them couldn't be really. It didn't teach me anything substantive factually (like I knew AG suffered from tremendous unrequited love in his relationship with NC and I knew CC had an affair with JK) but it was very interesting to see the relationship between talent and character in each of the men and how it defined their careers and lives. NC: too much character, not enough commitment, therefore an indispensable muse for the generation but left no body of work. JK: too much commitment to the craft, not a strong enough character to withhold the difficulty of life and relationships in order to service his art. a great body of work but too insular. AG: perfect balance of character and commitment, lived a wonderful and complex life, left a wonderful and complex legacy.
I don't really ever read memoirs for reasons I won't go into but I will say this one was highly effective in comparing the three men in the title in a way that a conventional biography by any of them couldn't be really. It didn't teach me anything substantive factually (like I knew AG suffered from tremendous unrequited love in his relationship with NC and I knew CC had an affair with JK) but it was very interesting to see the relationship between talent and character in each of the men and how it defined their careers and lives. NC: too much character, not enough commitment, therefore an indispensable muse for the generation but left no body of work. JK: too much commitment to the craft, not a strong enough character to withhold the difficulty of life and relationships in order to service his art. a great body of work but too insular. AG: perfect balance of character and commitment, lived a wonderful and complex life, left a wonderful and complex legacy.
July 19, 2010
This book seemed very faithful about capturing the personal writings of "the Beat Generation," via letters and conversations. But the woman didn't seem to leave out a single gawddang thing . . . EVERYTHING is in there, so much that the reader should feel content to skim.
Carolyn Cassady entirely deserves to have her story voiced. Her writing style is both patient and intelligent. However, the story of her marriage to Neal Cassady reads as if she wants to be nominated for a sainthood, as if she had no choice but to play a life-long role as "Ma," as her husband called her.
She was the woman who kept him alive for long enough to inspire the famous works by Kerouac and Ginsberg. Her consolation prize was that someone decided to let her write 450 pages about it for publication.
Carolyn Cassady entirely deserves to have her story voiced. Her writing style is both patient and intelligent. However, the story of her marriage to Neal Cassady reads as if she wants to be nominated for a sainthood, as if she had no choice but to play a life-long role as "Ma," as her husband called her.
She was the woman who kept him alive for long enough to inspire the famous works by Kerouac and Ginsberg. Her consolation prize was that someone decided to let her write 450 pages about it for publication.
February 3, 2019
After I met the two daughters of Neil Cassidy last year in Berkeley at a book fair, I decided to buy this book. They told me that their mother, the author of this book, wanted to tell the true story about Neil who was, according to his daughters, such a caring and nice father to them. That may be true for them, after reading the book, my impression of Neil Cassidy is that he seems to care mainly about himself. The emancipation of women in the fifties had a long road to take.
September 30, 2025
3.5 super cool for anyone who’s interested by the beat generation and its formation, and gives really good insight on who Jack Kerouac was as a person
March 4, 2015
I read this book in three days and loved hearing all the other details that the other books leave out. I was never really bored but I kept getting angry at Neal for being an A-hole all the time. It got to the point I wished he was still alive just so I could track him down and tell him so. But like with all books I had to sit back and absorb it, take it all in and think about it for a good day or two before coming to a final decision.
In the end I decided that Carolyn (C ) has a very bitter attitude toward her marriage to Neal (N). Yes he was a womanizer and bisexual but she knew about this before she married him. She knew the sex was bad with him but I don’t recall her ever mentioning them working that situation out, it was more like she just laid there and took it. She also had an educated man whom her family approved and was desperate to marry her and give her a good life but she’d rather take the cool bad boy with the cool friends who doesn’t have a degree a job or any real prospects. Then later when her life is difficult she complains a lot about it.
I did feel sorry for how poor they were how they had very little and ate cornmeal for awhile just to get by. She also would mention here and there about her sister who lived fairly close and although her parents didn’t exactly approve of Neal they didn’t write her off completely. Maybe it was pride on her part but I don’t see why she didn’t ask her family for help in those times. It also occurred to me that she had more education than N did but would throw a fit every time she was forced to go work. C would go on and on how she’d nag N to do more work but between trips with Jack I got the feeling he did work very hard in a dangerous industry (trains). They lived in LA-CA and she had studied set design and worked in the industry and yet never bothered to try and get a job in it? When she did later on it was for school or something.
N didn’t make life easy for C but I’m also sure she didn’t make life easy for him either. Fugitively speaking she kept him as well as everyone else, at arm’s length. I found it funny how all of N’s women, both ex’s and currents tried to be friends with her but she, a bit understandably, wanted nothing to do with them.
All of N’s friends lived in other states so when they did come to visit of course he’d want to hang around with them, something C would seethe over, she also assumed he was cheating, always. As I said they all lived in different states or cities, so she had him most of the time yet when they would come she’d get furious unless it was Jack, who she admitted to sleeping with.
Their relationship seemed very unhealthy and it felt like she treated the fact she was married to him like she had managed to snag the best parking space in the lot and while she felt pride of snagging it at first and loved it after a while she no longer wanted it but she also didn’t want to give it up to the line of cars eagerly waiting for that spot. When she did break things off with him it was always her doing and then she’d be furious if he found someone else. Then they’d get back together and the process would start again.
I got angry over Diane, at least I think that was her name, ordeal. D was pregnant with N’s baby during one of the separations, wanted to marry her and C managed to get him back. D, heartbroken tried in vain to contact him but he just refused to ever see her again. Sure D was a model, she had a career and family but that doesn’t give the okay to insist N never speak to her again when she has his child.
The book had a lot of details on some things but glossed over others which left me confused. C mentions that N would just take off for weeks towards the end of the marriage and then put one line about how he randomly showed up when their daughter had a baby. No mention how old she was, I assume teenager, who the father was or anything like that just she gave birth. Then he shows up later furious he caught one of the daughters smoking weed, uh they follow their parents example bub.
It was also pretty evident N preferred to have an open marriage and would even bring men around to C for her to bother if she wanted to. Perhaps it was guilt on his part for so many affairs, or else he was embracing the free-love ideal before it became popular. Once again C knew what he was like and still assumed he would change and he would not. They probably needed to have a good sit down conversation about all this, instead of all the pent up frustration and anger that went on for years.
I don’t believe N was quite as bad as C makes him out to be in this book, like I said earlier she sounds very bitter about her marriage to him. Maybe it was the fact he was more of a free spirit than she was. But like so many artistic types and writers I hear about their love of life was the undoing of normalcy in it. Too much drugs, drinking and women don’t mesh well when you have a family. He did work hard to support them for a decade and she admitted he was a good father and loved his children, when he was around. Perhaps if they were to shy away from the normal family life they wouldn’t be torn between their two loves which were always fighting with each other. Unfortunately for Carolyn she lost, but then again she’s the one who was pushing him away for years and finally ended it.
In the end I decided that Carolyn (C ) has a very bitter attitude toward her marriage to Neal (N). Yes he was a womanizer and bisexual but she knew about this before she married him. She knew the sex was bad with him but I don’t recall her ever mentioning them working that situation out, it was more like she just laid there and took it. She also had an educated man whom her family approved and was desperate to marry her and give her a good life but she’d rather take the cool bad boy with the cool friends who doesn’t have a degree a job or any real prospects. Then later when her life is difficult she complains a lot about it.
I did feel sorry for how poor they were how they had very little and ate cornmeal for awhile just to get by. She also would mention here and there about her sister who lived fairly close and although her parents didn’t exactly approve of Neal they didn’t write her off completely. Maybe it was pride on her part but I don’t see why she didn’t ask her family for help in those times. It also occurred to me that she had more education than N did but would throw a fit every time she was forced to go work. C would go on and on how she’d nag N to do more work but between trips with Jack I got the feeling he did work very hard in a dangerous industry (trains). They lived in LA-CA and she had studied set design and worked in the industry and yet never bothered to try and get a job in it? When she did later on it was for school or something.
N didn’t make life easy for C but I’m also sure she didn’t make life easy for him either. Fugitively speaking she kept him as well as everyone else, at arm’s length. I found it funny how all of N’s women, both ex’s and currents tried to be friends with her but she, a bit understandably, wanted nothing to do with them.
All of N’s friends lived in other states so when they did come to visit of course he’d want to hang around with them, something C would seethe over, she also assumed he was cheating, always. As I said they all lived in different states or cities, so she had him most of the time yet when they would come she’d get furious unless it was Jack, who she admitted to sleeping with.
Their relationship seemed very unhealthy and it felt like she treated the fact she was married to him like she had managed to snag the best parking space in the lot and while she felt pride of snagging it at first and loved it after a while she no longer wanted it but she also didn’t want to give it up to the line of cars eagerly waiting for that spot. When she did break things off with him it was always her doing and then she’d be furious if he found someone else. Then they’d get back together and the process would start again.
I got angry over Diane, at least I think that was her name, ordeal. D was pregnant with N’s baby during one of the separations, wanted to marry her and C managed to get him back. D, heartbroken tried in vain to contact him but he just refused to ever see her again. Sure D was a model, she had a career and family but that doesn’t give the okay to insist N never speak to her again when she has his child.
The book had a lot of details on some things but glossed over others which left me confused. C mentions that N would just take off for weeks towards the end of the marriage and then put one line about how he randomly showed up when their daughter had a baby. No mention how old she was, I assume teenager, who the father was or anything like that just she gave birth. Then he shows up later furious he caught one of the daughters smoking weed, uh they follow their parents example bub.
It was also pretty evident N preferred to have an open marriage and would even bring men around to C for her to bother if she wanted to. Perhaps it was guilt on his part for so many affairs, or else he was embracing the free-love ideal before it became popular. Once again C knew what he was like and still assumed he would change and he would not. They probably needed to have a good sit down conversation about all this, instead of all the pent up frustration and anger that went on for years.
I don’t believe N was quite as bad as C makes him out to be in this book, like I said earlier she sounds very bitter about her marriage to him. Maybe it was the fact he was more of a free spirit than she was. But like so many artistic types and writers I hear about their love of life was the undoing of normalcy in it. Too much drugs, drinking and women don’t mesh well when you have a family. He did work hard to support them for a decade and she admitted he was a good father and loved his children, when he was around. Perhaps if they were to shy away from the normal family life they wouldn’t be torn between their two loves which were always fighting with each other. Unfortunately for Carolyn she lost, but then again she’s the one who was pushing him away for years and finally ended it.
August 3, 2020
Life with Neal was never easy. Details focus on the years 1947-1958, with many excerpts of letters from Neal and Jack.
December 1, 2019
Pluses (I guess) a collection of vivid gossip about the Beat crowd. Possibly of interest to completists.
Cassady writes of her sexually charged and emotionally volatile relationship with Neal Cassady (pal of Jack Kerouace and Allen Ginsberg.) It was initially engaging for me as an intimate look into 1950s mores, and I looked forward to learning that the clash of very different personalities eventually reached a fresh understanding or turning point of some sort. What would that be like!
Carolyn went from being a sensible, independent, fairly conservative young woman to being a serially disappointed lover to being a historian of grievances large and petty. Cassady gave her a rich supply of things to complain about, but after every infidelity or brush with the law, he could just smile that smile and she'd be back to word one again. Sometimes she turned from detailing Neal's outrageousness to justifying his misdeeds (those awful narcotics officers, so mean and unfair!) Occasionally she would vow to change her own behavior, but as often as she repeated those vows, they would stick with her for only a few paragraphs at a time.
And then-- spoiler alerts-- Neal was in Mexico and then he was dead. One last lengthy squabble over his ashes and then, done. That fresh understanding that I hoped to read about never happened.
Cassady writes of her sexually charged and emotionally volatile relationship with Neal Cassady (pal of Jack Kerouace and Allen Ginsberg.) It was initially engaging for me as an intimate look into 1950s mores, and I looked forward to learning that the clash of very different personalities eventually reached a fresh understanding or turning point of some sort. What would that be like!
Carolyn went from being a sensible, independent, fairly conservative young woman to being a serially disappointed lover to being a historian of grievances large and petty. Cassady gave her a rich supply of things to complain about, but after every infidelity or brush with the law, he could just smile that smile and she'd be back to word one again. Sometimes she turned from detailing Neal's outrageousness to justifying his misdeeds (those awful narcotics officers, so mean and unfair!) Occasionally she would vow to change her own behavior, but as often as she repeated those vows, they would stick with her for only a few paragraphs at a time.
And then-- spoiler alerts-- Neal was in Mexico and then he was dead. One last lengthy squabble over his ashes and then, done. That fresh understanding that I hoped to read about never happened.
February 22, 2023
Such a long book. Carolyn is meticulous. Sometimes I feel there is too much detail. She fills in a ton of behind the scenes into both Jack and Neal. It's mostly about Neal but if you've read a decent amount of Kerouac you can see a lot of the content of his books pass into the next. Somewhere around page 150 in this 400+ page book the events of On The Road have mostly transpired, so if that's all you were interested in you could leave it there. The love triangle between Carolyn, Neal, and Jack was surprising. And interesting to learn that Jack wrote Maggie Cassidy, tale of his first childhood love, as a way to emotionally process being heartbroken over Carolyn. The fame and infamy that Kerouac experienced overnight was what really ruined him, this is made so clear. And almost as overnight, Neal Cassady goes from being a beat icon to shepherding the burgeoning hippies
October 21, 2022
Es el primer libro que leo de la "Generación Beat" y creo que he empezado con muy mal pie. O no lo he entendido o simplemente no me ha gustado. Sospecho que es lo primero, ya que obtuve esta novela por la recomendación de un librero, y más tarde, cuando iba por casi la mitad de la historia y no me estaba gustando, me enteré de que es una parodia de 'On the road' de Kerouac. Con lo cual, tal vez no haya entendido ni la mitad porque al no haber leído nada más de esta generación me faltan referencias por comprender.
De todas formas, en numerosas ocasiones me han atormentado sentimientos encontrados acerca de la percepción de los personajes. Con Carolyn no he podido más que sentir lástima por las incontables veces en las que se aprovechaban de su buena fe para después generar una situación tanto comprometida e incómoda como surrealista e injusta para ella. No entiendo su fijación con Neal, o incluso con Jack, pero sí es cierto que antiguamente las mujeres eran educadas de manera distinta para soportar todas las vicisitudes del matrimonio y que prevaleciera el "amor".
Por más aires de modernidad que Carolyn pudiera aparentar con ese matrimonio abierto o poliamoroso que le queda casi a regañadientes con Neal, no es más que una esposa desatendida y abandonada. Fue más compensación por las innumerables infidelidades de Neal que otra cosa, porque no hay conversación previa de "Cariño, vamos a tener un matrimonio más abierto" ni concepción de una idea que al final termina fluyendo y surge. No. Carolyn, a medida que pasa el tiempo, descubre a Neal con hombres y mujeres teniendo o bien relaciones sexuales o bien relaciones amorosas y/o sexuales cada vez que abandonaba el hogar durante horas, días o temporadas largas. Es por eso que cuando Carolyn siente esa atracción por Kerouac, amiguísimo de Neal, este intenta mirar hacia otro lado y propiciar a que se dé su romance para que Jack pueda darle lo que él mismo con su sed de aventura y su pensamiento poco tradicional de la familia, simplemente no puede. Parece que sea cuestión de contexto beneficioso y no de verdadero pensamiento de libertad amorosa y sexual.
Como bien he dicho anteriormente, he sentido pena por Carolyn. Esposa abandonada, madre casada pero soltera al cargo de tres hijas, haciendo malabares con el dinero para poder sacar la familia adelante mientras Neal estaba consumiéndose lentamente con la adicción a los narcóticos.
Es cierto que mi parte favorita de la historia ha sido la tercera: donde Cassady y Kerouac sufren las consecuencias de una vida de derroche y drogas. Empiezo a comprender que lo que caracterizó a esta época literaria fue el consumo de estupefacientes y problemas de salud mental tanto por el contexto social general como el individual. Es por eso que creo que se romantizan hasta la saciedad las drogas y la decadencia: porque es más divertido hacerlo bonito que ver de verdad el pozo de mierda en el que uno se hunde y se apaga.
Por consiguiente, voy a ser hipócrita: he dicho que no entendía la fijación de Carolyn por Neal, pero es cierto que este sujeto me ha suscitado un rechazo enorme así como fascinación. Creo que si era tal y como le describe esta novela, era una criatura bien curiosa. Detecto ciertos tintes egocéntricos y/o narcisistas, él mismo le cuenta a Carolyn que la propia sombra de su personaje generaba expectación cuando estaba rodeado de gente y que entonces se colocaba en su lugar y volvía a girar esa espiral sin sentido de ser ese personaje excéntrico y extrovertido que acabó consumiéndole. También, en varias ocasiones habla de su rechazo al suicidio y aunque fuera tajante con eso, tal y como Carolyn observó muy acertadamente: "buscaba la muerte en cada cosa que hacía". No tenía miedo al peligro, parecía que intentaba que ocurriera algún accidente para lavarse las manos e irse con una conciencia más tranquila.
Una de las cosas que puede que sí que me hayan llegado, es la despersonalización de Jack a través de su alcoholismo. Las conversaciones que Carolyn dice tener con él por teléfono en las que Kerouac solo deliraba o con ella o con Neal, la desconexión, la pérdida del hilo y la razón... Imagino que me ha impactado que la adicción al alcohol de Jack y la imagen que se le otorgaba y le precede de genio, de escritor maldito (romantización pura), sea tan parecida a la de una persona que una vez conocí. ¿No se supone que a estas alturas deberíamos verlo de otra manera? Como un escritor adicto a, no como un genio "maldito".
Descubrir al final del libro que Neal muere —por lo que parece por consumo de drogas— y que meses más tarde, tal y como se le iba anunciando a Carolyn, Jack se une a Neal, me ha generado una extraña sensación de tristeza y decepción. El deterioro de ambos a lo largo de la trama es brutal, al principio el ritmo es lento pero después acelera y no hay freno que lo pare. Es triste que toda una generación haya sido marcada por esto: por el abandono de las instituciones, por la negligencia misma de la sociedad, por el poco conocimiento sobre salud mental o directamente la ignorancia de esta, por tener que romantizar las drogas y todos los cambios que conllevan después en quien las consume, en el descontrol y el desequilibrio de los que están al borde del abismo...
Puede que no me haya gustado el libro como tal, puede que me falten muchas lecturas por hacer para poder llegar a conectar con él de verdad, pero creo que el retrato que se le hace a la sociedad de aquella época es bastante acertado. Investigaré más sobre ellos porque me parece una pena que a día de hoy hayan pasado a la historia como unas leyendas sin ser conscientes muchos lectores de esta parte tan reveladoramente oscura.
De todas formas, en numerosas ocasiones me han atormentado sentimientos encontrados acerca de la percepción de los personajes. Con Carolyn no he podido más que sentir lástima por las incontables veces en las que se aprovechaban de su buena fe para después generar una situación tanto comprometida e incómoda como surrealista e injusta para ella. No entiendo su fijación con Neal, o incluso con Jack, pero sí es cierto que antiguamente las mujeres eran educadas de manera distinta para soportar todas las vicisitudes del matrimonio y que prevaleciera el "amor".
Por más aires de modernidad que Carolyn pudiera aparentar con ese matrimonio abierto o poliamoroso que le queda casi a regañadientes con Neal, no es más que una esposa desatendida y abandonada. Fue más compensación por las innumerables infidelidades de Neal que otra cosa, porque no hay conversación previa de "Cariño, vamos a tener un matrimonio más abierto" ni concepción de una idea que al final termina fluyendo y surge. No. Carolyn, a medida que pasa el tiempo, descubre a Neal con hombres y mujeres teniendo o bien relaciones sexuales o bien relaciones amorosas y/o sexuales cada vez que abandonaba el hogar durante horas, días o temporadas largas. Es por eso que cuando Carolyn siente esa atracción por Kerouac, amiguísimo de Neal, este intenta mirar hacia otro lado y propiciar a que se dé su romance para que Jack pueda darle lo que él mismo con su sed de aventura y su pensamiento poco tradicional de la familia, simplemente no puede. Parece que sea cuestión de contexto beneficioso y no de verdadero pensamiento de libertad amorosa y sexual.
Como bien he dicho anteriormente, he sentido pena por Carolyn. Esposa abandonada, madre casada pero soltera al cargo de tres hijas, haciendo malabares con el dinero para poder sacar la familia adelante mientras Neal estaba consumiéndose lentamente con la adicción a los narcóticos.
Es cierto que mi parte favorita de la historia ha sido la tercera: donde Cassady y Kerouac sufren las consecuencias de una vida de derroche y drogas. Empiezo a comprender que lo que caracterizó a esta época literaria fue el consumo de estupefacientes y problemas de salud mental tanto por el contexto social general como el individual. Es por eso que creo que se romantizan hasta la saciedad las drogas y la decadencia: porque es más divertido hacerlo bonito que ver de verdad el pozo de mierda en el que uno se hunde y se apaga.
Por consiguiente, voy a ser hipócrita: he dicho que no entendía la fijación de Carolyn por Neal, pero es cierto que este sujeto me ha suscitado un rechazo enorme así como fascinación. Creo que si era tal y como le describe esta novela, era una criatura bien curiosa. Detecto ciertos tintes egocéntricos y/o narcisistas, él mismo le cuenta a Carolyn que la propia sombra de su personaje generaba expectación cuando estaba rodeado de gente y que entonces se colocaba en su lugar y volvía a girar esa espiral sin sentido de ser ese personaje excéntrico y extrovertido que acabó consumiéndole. También, en varias ocasiones habla de su rechazo al suicidio y aunque fuera tajante con eso, tal y como Carolyn observó muy acertadamente: "buscaba la muerte en cada cosa que hacía". No tenía miedo al peligro, parecía que intentaba que ocurriera algún accidente para lavarse las manos e irse con una conciencia más tranquila.
Una de las cosas que puede que sí que me hayan llegado, es la despersonalización de Jack a través de su alcoholismo. Las conversaciones que Carolyn dice tener con él por teléfono en las que Kerouac solo deliraba o con ella o con Neal, la desconexión, la pérdida del hilo y la razón... Imagino que me ha impactado que la adicción al alcohol de Jack y la imagen que se le otorgaba y le precede de genio, de escritor maldito (romantización pura), sea tan parecida a la de una persona que una vez conocí. ¿No se supone que a estas alturas deberíamos verlo de otra manera? Como un escritor adicto a, no como un genio "maldito".
Descubrir al final del libro que Neal muere —por lo que parece por consumo de drogas— y que meses más tarde, tal y como se le iba anunciando a Carolyn, Jack se une a Neal, me ha generado una extraña sensación de tristeza y decepción. El deterioro de ambos a lo largo de la trama es brutal, al principio el ritmo es lento pero después acelera y no hay freno que lo pare. Es triste que toda una generación haya sido marcada por esto: por el abandono de las instituciones, por la negligencia misma de la sociedad, por el poco conocimiento sobre salud mental o directamente la ignorancia de esta, por tener que romantizar las drogas y todos los cambios que conllevan después en quien las consume, en el descontrol y el desequilibrio de los que están al borde del abismo...
Puede que no me haya gustado el libro como tal, puede que me falten muchas lecturas por hacer para poder llegar a conectar con él de verdad, pero creo que el retrato que se le hace a la sociedad de aquella época es bastante acertado. Investigaré más sobre ellos porque me parece una pena que a día de hoy hayan pasado a la historia como unas leyendas sin ser conscientes muchos lectores de esta parte tan reveladoramente oscura.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 16, 2013
This book had its up and downs. It does provide some fascinating insight into the seminal figures in the beat movement and those anecdotes are fun and exciting. The writing is lackluster though, very timid and has a gossipy tone throughout. I did like some of it though and I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of the Beat Generation.
April 1, 2015
A good read, but mostly for Carolyn's perspective off Kerouac, Cassady and Ginsberg. I prefer Joyce Johnson's book because it is a powerful memoir on its own. Still, I consider Off the Road a must-read for anyone who is
Interested at all in the Beat movement - you won't have the whole story until you read this book and Johnson's Minor
Characters.
Interested at all in the Beat movement - you won't have the whole story until you read this book and Johnson's Minor
Characters.
July 12, 2009
The beat generation took place in Carolyn Cassady's living room. I don't know how she put up with Jack and Neal but her book is a great inside story for those who want to know more about the boys in the car "On The Road" and the women they left behind.
July 2, 2012
Living a chaotic life, sharing it with incredible men, she wrote this book not as a witness but as a true participant of the literary and musical movement I love. Was lucky enough to hear her read in Brighton many years ago,what a woman!
February 21, 2016
I don't remember this book very well. I didn't get interested in the beat generation until the late 1980s when I wondered what the difference was between the beats and the hippies, as I had heard that the beats evolved into the hippies, and so I spent a few years trying to catch up.
October 23, 2025
Not sure where to begin summarising my impressions after spending three weeks immersed in this book and, by extension, in the beat universe. I read it slowly - because it’s long and dense, but also because it’s the kind of reading you need to interrupt often to lose yourself in the rabbit holes of the beat fandom online, putting faces on names, checking bios, looking up places..
Truth is, I wasn’t a beat fan at all, pretty ignorant of the whole thing really (except for Ferlinghetti who held a very special place in my heart), but I have long been a true devotee of Big Sur, highway one, San Francisco hills, and other patterns of the fantasised Californian iconography. Fun fact: in August 2018, I accidentally sat at a table of the Vesuvio cafe in San Francisco, while I was myself on the road in a troubled yet gripping love story with a midwestern musician living in LA. At the time I didn’t know much about the 1950s American literary scene, the City Lights bookstore (right on the other side of the street), or anything beatnik really. For me, Big Sur and SF were Richard Brautigan coded and that was it. I was looking for coffee and just sat there.
I have a vague memory of trying to read On the Road years and years ago, a French translation (terrible i think), and it fell out of my hands. It wasn’t the right time, or rather it was the best time to avoid it; as a young influenceable spirit who knows how much I would have been damaged by it.
I bought Carolyn Cassady’s Off the Road years ago in an Oxfam shop in Bristol. Not sure why I did, because I left it to catch the dust for months after that. Then, when I moved to London, I took it with the rest of my books, and it lived in another house for a year and a half, untouched. It’s only in my second London home, after remembering it through a conversation with my dear friend Mana (hi if you read this), that I picked it up from the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
I went through all the states in the twenty years/three weeks I spent with Carolyn Cassady. It all started as an ‘everything-that’s-wrong-about-men’ kind of book - infuriating, unfair, violent - but further in, I caught myself accepting the complexities of these relationships. First, Carolyn is more than the cheated wife, the muse or the self-effacing biographer: she was a writer, a painter, a set and costume designer - in addition to homemaker, brave mother, loving friend, all at the same time. I wasn’t always on her side (I wasn’t on Neal’s either don't worry), and with the whole new age phase, I grew apart from her. But I ended up admiring her dedication, even though I can’t help but imagine what her life would have been if she had been able to escape her condition as a younger woman. Especially, I mourn all her unpublished writings - plays, diaries, letters, essays - because in Off the Road, I loved her clever and witty mind, her tone, fun but deep. If she was not able to be the writer and the artist she should/could have been, it’s because she had to be the adult supporting overgrown teenagers carelessly having fun. But closing the book I thought: well, does it really matter in the end, that she stayed off the road? She had a lovely life afterwards, healthy, loved and cared for, a life I find much more desirable than Kerouac's or Neal's.
Last thought: isn't it amazing how the 'road' as a pattern feels like such a paradox between Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Carolyn Cassady's Off the Road. Jack was always on the move, living new adventures, while Carolyn stayed still, homebound. Yet Jack was actually on the same roads all the time, between the same places, relentlessly coming back, circling, spinning. It made me realise how ironic the etymology of 'routine' is, how tirelessly looking for the extraordinary can become so repetitive, and how everyday life can be the real adventure.
There is so much more I could say (and did write) about the book and everything I’ve learnt about the beat generation lately, but this is already an extraordinarily long review. It wasn’t a five-star book per se, but my experience definitely was, and I would always recommend books with such absorbing abilities. Now back on the road, off to read Big Sur :)
Truth is, I wasn’t a beat fan at all, pretty ignorant of the whole thing really (except for Ferlinghetti who held a very special place in my heart), but I have long been a true devotee of Big Sur, highway one, San Francisco hills, and other patterns of the fantasised Californian iconography. Fun fact: in August 2018, I accidentally sat at a table of the Vesuvio cafe in San Francisco, while I was myself on the road in a troubled yet gripping love story with a midwestern musician living in LA. At the time I didn’t know much about the 1950s American literary scene, the City Lights bookstore (right on the other side of the street), or anything beatnik really. For me, Big Sur and SF were Richard Brautigan coded and that was it. I was looking for coffee and just sat there.
I have a vague memory of trying to read On the Road years and years ago, a French translation (terrible i think), and it fell out of my hands. It wasn’t the right time, or rather it was the best time to avoid it; as a young influenceable spirit who knows how much I would have been damaged by it.
I bought Carolyn Cassady’s Off the Road years ago in an Oxfam shop in Bristol. Not sure why I did, because I left it to catch the dust for months after that. Then, when I moved to London, I took it with the rest of my books, and it lived in another house for a year and a half, untouched. It’s only in my second London home, after remembering it through a conversation with my dear friend Mana (hi if you read this), that I picked it up from the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
I went through all the states in the twenty years/three weeks I spent with Carolyn Cassady. It all started as an ‘everything-that’s-wrong-about-men’ kind of book - infuriating, unfair, violent - but further in, I caught myself accepting the complexities of these relationships. First, Carolyn is more than the cheated wife, the muse or the self-effacing biographer: she was a writer, a painter, a set and costume designer - in addition to homemaker, brave mother, loving friend, all at the same time. I wasn’t always on her side (I wasn’t on Neal’s either don't worry), and with the whole new age phase, I grew apart from her. But I ended up admiring her dedication, even though I can’t help but imagine what her life would have been if she had been able to escape her condition as a younger woman. Especially, I mourn all her unpublished writings - plays, diaries, letters, essays - because in Off the Road, I loved her clever and witty mind, her tone, fun but deep. If she was not able to be the writer and the artist she should/could have been, it’s because she had to be the adult supporting overgrown teenagers carelessly having fun. But closing the book I thought: well, does it really matter in the end, that she stayed off the road? She had a lovely life afterwards, healthy, loved and cared for, a life I find much more desirable than Kerouac's or Neal's.
Last thought: isn't it amazing how the 'road' as a pattern feels like such a paradox between Jack Kerouac's On the Road and Carolyn Cassady's Off the Road. Jack was always on the move, living new adventures, while Carolyn stayed still, homebound. Yet Jack was actually on the same roads all the time, between the same places, relentlessly coming back, circling, spinning. It made me realise how ironic the etymology of 'routine' is, how tirelessly looking for the extraordinary can become so repetitive, and how everyday life can be the real adventure.
There is so much more I could say (and did write) about the book and everything I’ve learnt about the beat generation lately, but this is already an extraordinarily long review. It wasn’t a five-star book per se, but my experience definitely was, and I would always recommend books with such absorbing abilities. Now back on the road, off to read Big Sur :)
July 9, 2018
Great! It reveals A LOT about Jack and Neal - this book answers questions that you may have after reading "On the Road". Neal especially is revealed to be probably mentally ill in the last years of his life. Rather sobering to discover the ugly end that both those guys came to. It's also incredible to read a story that stretches across whole lifetimes of crazy adventures.
However there are a couple of big questions this book does NOT answer and this is what I want to ask the historians:
1) Why did Carolyn and Neal apparently make NO EFFORT to rescue Jack from his alcoholism? Neal had already lost his own father to alcohol. Sure Neal's own mental health was failing by that time but Carolyn was in good health why didn't she try to help Jack?
2) Why did Carolyn stick so stubbornly with Neal? The way she tells this story, Jack seems like he would have made a better partner. I think Carolyn would have been happier, Jack may not have descended into alcoholism and it may even have been a good outcome for Neal. I guess we will never know what might have been.
see more reviews at: http://bench-press.blogspot.com/
However there are a couple of big questions this book does NOT answer and this is what I want to ask the historians:
1) Why did Carolyn and Neal apparently make NO EFFORT to rescue Jack from his alcoholism? Neal had already lost his own father to alcohol. Sure Neal's own mental health was failing by that time but Carolyn was in good health why didn't she try to help Jack?
2) Why did Carolyn stick so stubbornly with Neal? The way she tells this story, Jack seems like he would have made a better partner. I think Carolyn would have been happier, Jack may not have descended into alcoholism and it may even have been a good outcome for Neal. I guess we will never know what might have been.
see more reviews at: http://bench-press.blogspot.com/
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July 6, 2018Jaa, Carolyn on mu kangelane, ehkki ta pole kirjanikuna päris nii särav kui Neal või Kerouac, kelle kirju siin ka päris tihti tsiteeritakse (lihtsalt hea oli ikka), aga tal oli mõõtmatu vägilaskannatus, millega Neali ja teiste totrusi välja kannatada (või kaasa teha!) ja nende yle kergelt muiata. Ta mainib ise ka paar korda oma viktoriaanlikku kasvatust ja mõnikord ongi ta nagu mõni janeaustenlik viks daam keset nende kodutsirkust (aga Neali kirjadest teame, et polnudki eriti) ja kõige naljakam oli mulle, kui ta räägib teise viksi daami Helen Hinkle'iga viimase "On the roadi"-aegsetest seiklustest, kui too Burroughsite juurde jalust ära saadeti (Helen pidas neid esialgu auväärt haritlasteks, mis Burroughsitele suurt nalja tegi ja kes jõudumööda pyydsid ta ettekujutusele vastata), kellel muuhulgas olnud aias puu, millelt Joan igal õhtul meelekindlalt sisalikke käinud maha rehitsemas. Ka Joan on mu kangelane. Aga jah, pöörased ajad on lõbusad ainult mõnda aega ja mida sa ikka teed, kui su mees on kogu aega kas masenduses või pilves, lõpuks lahutad ikka ära.
December 6, 2018
I really enjoyed Carolyn's perspective of the time period covered in Jack Kerouac's infamous 'On the Road'. She also continued to share her and Neil Cassady's story until his death in 1969. I read some reviews before requesting this book from my local library (had to do an interlibrary loan). There was some negative feedback that the book rambled, but honestly, I didn't think so. It was an interesting time in our history for women, especially educated women, which Carolyn was. Yet, she was drawn to the 'bad boy' and never could really shake her attraction to him. It deeply affected her life/life choices. As time went on, especially after his death, she began to emerge as an individual, and a strong woman (this part of her life is not chronicled in the book, but rather I was interested enough to try and find additional information about her life after the book. Anyway, I recommend it.. Enjoy! : )
August 18, 2018
Read of the challenges being responsible for yourself and your children through a maelstorm of sex, drugs, rock and roll, jail, travel, heady spirituality, Merry Pranksters, racetracks, justified deceit, and so forth. Overall I come away with a tragic beauty. Cassady and Kerouac and Carolyn were all aware of the roles they played but seemed unable break from their trajectories. Cassady built up an iconic rebel daredevil hopped up manic be-bop lifestyle but then is drawn into providing for a wife and two kids. What does he do ? Attempt to hold it down but then skitters away leaving them high and dry to fall into arms of women across country. Cake and eat it too. Enjoyable page turner of a read but makes even more aware poles of having a daring creative mystical life and the banality of buying toilet paper. Check it out for a director's cut behind scenes of Beat Generation.
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