Book Review
Maggie Cassidy

by Jack Kerouac

In my old age, I intend to collect all my work and reinsert my pantheon of uniform names, leave the long shelf full of books there, and die happy
- Kerouac

Among the body of works that Kerouac considers part of his "Legend of Duluoz", his collection of books all dealing with the same subject (his visceral life experience and the places, people, and ideas he had come across along the way) is this short and sweet story of teenage love, Maggie Cassidy.
This story takes place in Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massuchussets in the mid to late nineteen thirties. Since Kerouac was born in this town in 1922, that would put him at the age of a teenager during the time the book spans, and his description of family events contains autobiographical information, so it is easy to believe Kerouac is telling you of a love affair in his life. The time, the setting, the family situation all matches. Therefore is this story true? Unfortunately, Kerouac has been dead for almost thirty years and we can't ask him, but it is fun to speculate about.
The main character, in fact, is named Jacky Duluoz, sometimes called Jack, or "Zagg" by his best buds, the troup of teenaged boys he hung out with. He is a football player and track star at the high school, and meets an enchanting youg girl at a school dance. They have a love affair, only Kerouac, in his youthful immaturity, doesn't really know what to do with it. He wants to love her, he doesn't know how to love her, he struggles with himself.
I'm throwing that in there for my friend JJ, who told me once a story has to have one of the classic "Man versus ___" themes. I would say that this story's theme is man vesus himself. It is also about the fragility and intensity of young love. We all know what that is like to have such powerful feelings about someone else during this age, but not knowing how to handle it.
We have also all had to walk away from our past into our future, like this main character did in the novel. Eventually, he graduated from high school and went off to college at Columbia. This we know from Kerouac's history was the place where he eventually met the other men who would also be included in the "beat generation" of writers and muses, such as Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs. This book, however, ends around his sophomore year of college, right before he met the men who would influence his writing and his life decisions.
I'm not going to tell you how the story ends, you'll have it to find that out. Overall, though, I think that one would find this a saccharine and sublime novel. Kerouac's writing is concise and suberb, and also manages to convey a depth of feeling and inner angst.
I was a little surprised at the content. Since Kerouac sometimes used the pseudonym "Maggie" for Carolyn Cassady, whom he supposedly had an affair with, and the last names are similiar, I thought I would find similiar aspects to the relationship in this novel. After reading the novel, though, I don't think that there is a connection at all. It sounds like something else entirely. I am a little surprised also about the writing style. Kerouac's trademark spontaneous poetic prose is missing from this novel, and so far the books I had read of his that he includes in the "Legend of Duluoz" is written in this fashion. His epic novel The Town and the City, which includes a more orderly prose and story development, is not included in that collection of books. I would not have expected that this one was, either, but it is listed as such.
In one way, though, it makes total sense that it would be in that collection, because of the strong autobiographical nature told as if he was telling a friend. The collection does have that in common, as well as the story, told over time and in different ways, of a boy turning into a man turning into a star, a star that burned out with a liquor filled heart in the end. In that respect, it makes this novel significant as a piece of his history, the story of his youthful heart.