The Beat Generation
On September 5, 1957, New York Times book critic Gilbert Millstein wrote a piece on a novel by the then relatively unknown author Jack Kerouac. Millstein declared Kerouac the spokesman for the “Beat Generation,” which was seeking “kicks” and escape from convention. The book being reviewed was On the Road, an epic about going after a different American dream than the one usually promoted in the 1950s—not the suburban house, the new car and modern kitchen appliances, but the pursuit of experience and adventure. And to share the wild energy that compels On the Road’s narrator Sal Paradise to drive across the country, the need to follow “the ones who are mad to live…who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles….”
Alongside nearly every man who played a significant role in the Beat Generation was a woman who acted as a muse or means of financial support, mother to children, traveling companion, wife or friend. Minor Characters tells the story of these women, particularly through its author’s finely written recollections of her affair with Jack Kerouac just as he was about to reach the heights of fame.
The Women Behind the Writers
Joyce Johnson, born Joyce Glassman to a middle-class New York Jewish family, broke free from the confines of her parents’ home and pursued the life of a 1950s Bohemian. She had heard of Kerouac through mutual friends, but did not meet him until a late night date in 1957—and since Kerouac was broke, Joyce had to pay the tab. Jack was 34, Joyce 21. So began their on-again, off-again involvement and Joyce’s longing for them to become soul mates and writers together. Jack, however, had issues with commitment and what he could offer to a woman, and by 1959 they had broken up on a street corner, Joyce walking away yet hoping that Jack would follow—but he did not.
Before the final split, Joyce was there for Jack as the initial waves of praise came in for the publication of On the Road. While we essentially know Jack Kerouac as the handsome free spirit who ultimately drank himself to death, Joyce Johnson shows a more vulnerable man, and describes the excitement of their sitting in a bar together after midnight reading Gilbert Millstein's pivotal Times review:
It was all very thrilling—but frightening too. I’d read lots of reviews in my two years in publishing: None of them made pronouncement like this…
Jack lay down obscure for the last time in his life. The ringing phone woke him the next morning, and he was famous.
Parallel to Joyce Johnson’s involvement with Kerouac, Minor Characters details the more tragic stories of Elise Cowen, who was deeply in love with poet Allen Ginsberg, and Joan Vollmer, wife of Naked Lunch author William Burroughs. We also learn about Hettie Cohen, another nice Jewish girl who not only crossed over to the Bohemian side of life, she crossed the color barrier to marry African-American poet LeRoi Jones (later to change his name to Amiri Baraka).
Minor Characters is a wonderful remembrance of times past and of the creative energies of Beat New York, personified by its intriguing glimpse of young Joyce Glassman in black stockings, black skirt and black sweater—not because she’s trying to act dark and tormented, but because she’s eager to rebel against the pink and blue pastels of 1950s contemporary fashion, and to celebrate her own self-discovery.
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Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir - Joyce Johnson (Penguin Books, 1999)
On the Road - Jack Kerouac (Viking Press, 1997 40th Anniversary Edition)
