Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir: Amazon.ca: Joyce Johnson: Books

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

4.9 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars amazing, Feb 28 2002

By

jess (Washington DC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir (Paperback)

One of the best books i've ever had the good fortune to read. It has truly changed my life. Most beat writers are so sexist...it was encouraging to read a woman's account. But this book stands on its own, separate from its genre.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Pleasant Surprise!, Jan 20 2002

By

Patrick Julian Cassidy (San Francisco...Author of "A Journey to Bohemia") - See all my reviews

This review is from: Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir (Paperback)

I picked up the book because I heard that Ms. Johnson
hung out with Kerouac in the time right before his
writing hit big. I was looking for her take on it all.
This book surprised me because it is so well written.
She provides an excellent insight as to the struggles
which the female beat writers faced. I would recommend
this to any young aspiring female writers.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable memoir, Jan 16 2001

By

Tom Gillis (Kensington, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir (Paperback)

This is an extremely well-written memoir about the college (and following) years of a young woman who happens to fall into the middle of the Beat circle in the early 1950s. The author comes off as a very sympathetic character, and, when I closed the book, I was sorry that Joyce had not continued the story for a few more years.

I was struck by how much the intellectual world has changed in the last half-century: In 1950, the cultural avante-garde could be found (almost by definition) only around some Ivy League schools (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, etc.), a couple of midwestern schools, and, I guess, Stanford & Berkeley. Today, "place" is not nearly so important.

This is a very nice book. If you've gone to the trouble of getting to this page, you ought to take the next step and read the book; you won't be disapppointed (although you may continue to wonder just why the beatniks faded away in the early 60s).

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it for Joyce, not just Jack
Joyce Johnson's memoir of emerging from an overprotected childhood and landing at the center of the Beat movement in the 1950's is a delight whether you choose to read it for its... Read more

Published on Nov 29 2000 by C. Ebeling

5.0 out of 5 stars A much needed perspective about the women of the Beats
I first read this book in a community course on the Beats. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to use it in a coming of age course I teach at my high school. Read more

Published on Sep 12 2000 by Joseph Salvatore