BOOK REVIEW

Kerouac: A Biography

by Ann Charters

The word on the beat streets is that Charters' biography is the best of the works intrepreting Jack's life and influence. This was the book to read, so when I came across it, naturally I had to buy it.

I read the preface by the author first, written in 1986, some fourteen years since the book's original publication, which was about four years after Kerouac's death.

In it, Ann Charters describes how her husband Sam, who was a poet and novelist, helped her write the book while they were living in Sweden as a protest against Vietnam. She notes that Gary Snyder and Micheal McClure gave her encouragment along the final stages, which is interesting to me. These are the two literary minds and friends of Kerouac's helping to preserve his legacy after his premature death, because they felt his story needed to be told through Charters. The book is dedicated to Allen Ginsberg, who gave Charters great assistance during the writing of the book, with interviews and unlimited access to his archives and photos.

Initially, the book felt very dry to me. I was just starting to get disappointed that I wasn't reading anything I didn't already know, based on reading the "early" books of "The Duluoz Legend" - Visions of Gerard, Doctor Sax, and Maggie Cassidy. It seemed to be reciting facts that we all knew to be true - that Kerouac was born in Lowell, MA; was an athlete at school; lost a brother at an early age.

Around Chapter Three, the story began to broaden some, when Kerouac moves to Ozone Park and begins dating Edie Parker. This is an interesting relationship to me. He marries her, then leaves her two months later, saying later he felt himself getting too comfortable.

Depth was given to the relationship between Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac in this novel. It becomes very clear that Ginsberg was a major help in getting Kerouac published, and yet was rebuffed by never being developed into a major romantic hero in his novels, with Kerouac instead writing character study novels featuring Neal Cassady and Gary Synder. In the book is a photo Charters snapped of Allen Ginsberg, John McClellon Holmes, and Gregory Corso linking arms at Kerouac's funeral.

Jack got a little help from his friends. Ginsberg worked tirelessly to promote him among the literary set, poets and writers from New York and San Francisco. Holmes is credited with naming the Beat Generation and his novel Go was the first to be published covering this group of people, the circle of literary influence. Gregory Corso was by this time a well known Beat poet.

Through this novel, one could see how it would have aggravated people like Kenneth Rexroth, who had spent his professional life developing the San Francisco poetry scene, to see these characters - three guys from New York, and one from Lowell - become known for bringing the "Poetry Renaissance of San Francisco", where poetry was never dead.

This book comes alive with the relationships between people, and a sense of who each of them were and their place in Jack's life. To me, this is part of what I enjoy about the Beat poets - how they helped each other during different times with inspiration, editing, typing, and promoting. They influenced each others work or provided a muse. These "power friendships" amaze me.

Without Neal Cassady, without Allen Ginsberg, if made to face his responsibilities instead of having cross country adventures, what would Kerouac have been? We are all influenced by the people around us, and in this case, it led to a revolution of the mind, and the legacy of an author who transcribed the world he saw around him.

In the end, there was many details about Kerouac's life that I learned through this book, and it was an enjoyable read. I have a greater understanding of the relationships with people and places that helped Kerouac transcend his own unraveling, becoming the legend that he always thought he was meant to be.