Book Review
Jack Kerouac
King of the Beats
A Portrait
by Barry Miles
Thank you, Barry Miles. Such a lovely portrait you drew of my Jack.
(intended sarcasm). This book, I believe, was a big reason I became depressed last month. It is a haunting, depressing sort of portrait, the kind that has some redeeming quality but you just don't want to look at.
The label "King of the Beats" had a taunting quality towards the end of Kerouac's life, when he felt misunderstood and miscast by the American public. He spent the last ten years of his life drinking it all away. He basically killed himself with alcohol over a prolonged period of his life, and it is fascinating to wonder why.
Reading this book was a sharp, hard look at Kerouac as a wandering neurotic. It does not display Kerouac in a redeeming light, especially after the 1940s. It does, however, give great insight into the relationship between Jack and his first wife, Edie Parker. The first one hundred pages out of three hundred total are devoted to Jack's life before he went "on the road", and this is a vital part of history transcribed in a detail not seen in the other two Kerouac biographies I read recently. It was interesting to learn that Jack slept around, and then she did the same to get back to him, which caused a split in the relationship. This pattern he repeated with his second wife, Joan Haverty, who bore him a daughter he never claimed.
Barry Miles is harsh in his commentary about Kerouac's relationship with his daughter. Jack later gave her permission to use his name, and she wrote two of them before dying at an early age, a death that Miles strongly pins on Kerouac's drunken chest. Twice in the book, Miles condemned him for denying his own child, for not being there for her.

"His fans claim that he had a great heart, but he cared more for his cat than for his own daughter and there is all the difference in the world between sentimentality and sensitivity."

Miles demands that Kerouac "be held responsible for his daughter's misery" and suggests his absence caused her family to be so desperate that she sold her body in the streets at a young age, while he drank away his fortune.
In the end, this book left me wondering what kind of man would Jack had been if he had ever gotten past himself and experienced a true deep personal growth, if he had allowed himself to mature. If instead of trotting all over the world looking for kicks, what if he had allowed himself to be a family man, and take care of his responsibilities, transcend his personal issues with women and God? What if Kerouac hadn't become a drunk, but instead a mature person, equipped with the right tools to handle his fame and provide for his family?
I used to hold Jack Kerouac up as this romantic figure. I even fancied I would be in love with him if I had met him in true life. It is easy to think that when reading his incredible prose that sounds like poetry. The man was a genius with words, but he was terrible with people. After reading this, I realized that had I known him, I would not have wanted to be friend or lover to him. He took, he used, he overextended, and he offended.
Once of his friends with his early days, before Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady came in his life, was Henri Cru. Miles shows us Cru ripping up Jack's last letter to him and "flushing them down the toilet with all my other memories of Jack". Even patient Ginsberg had almost had it with him towards the end, although he remained a faithful friend, despite the anti-semitic beliefs Kerouac shared with his mother. Who knew, Kerouac, a big fan of McCarthyism as well?
Basically, Miles gives a portrait of Kerouac that is not a flattering one. He even suggest some sexual trysts that I am not sure I believe. We see Kerouac as manipulative, promiscious, and full of self-aggrandizing dreams about being the best novelist in the world.
He was scornful of others work, incredibly jealous, and not above send scathing letters to his friends, then call them at two in the morning, drunk and wanting to talk. He was the kind of friend you would get rid of fast, the kind of lover who would never last. He wanted to have a spiritual faith, but not abide by its codes of conduct. He is basically someone only a mother could love, and perhaps his did, a little too much.
In the end, I had to drop Kerouac as my romantic fantasy, and that loss was staggering. I think I am going to have to go read one of his best books just to get a fix for my hurting heart.
Thank you, Barry Miles. Such a lovely portrait.
(wiping tarnish off a crown of thorns)