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5.0 out of 5 stars
painting Jack's Angel in a bigger canvas, Nov 28 2003
I can't believe more people haven't written reviews of this book! It's essential if you're a Kerouac fan. It's by far the best-written word pictures of the bigger world Jack lived in. In fact, based on how well it was written and the accurate big picture it captured, Jerry Garcia found the author and brought him in to do the same thing for The Grateful Dead as their official biographer. [see A Long Strange Trip] I've got pretty much every Kerouac or Beat bio published, and other than the oral biography 'Jack's Book' which is in a class of it's own because its just a bunch of quotes, this is the best because of how it marries a passion for the subject with a creative historian's eye. it has the same graphic, visual enthusiasm of Jack's voice, mind and writing, without being a cheap imitation. hmm, not unlike how Jimmy Herring's guitar playing in the Jerry-less Dead -- creating from the same pool of color and intent, painted with a similarly deft stroke, but unique and only imitative in subtle knowing energy loving ways. The main vision of this work is how it paints the bigger canvas of the cities, culture, and country that Kerouac lived in. Other books may tell the ABCs of where Jack went when, and Jack's own books paint well the person he meets at the roadside coffee shop, but Jack was doing a series of small intimate portraits. Only indirectly and by implication did he write about popular culture and mores, or the politics and global events that were shaping the nation's mind. This book is only comparable to cultural histories or documentaries on NY or SF or America of say 1940 to 1960. What this did for me was fill in the picture of what was going through the minds of all the "neat-necktied producers and commuters of America" that Jack was surrounded by but never really entered their world. What WAS the America that Jack rejected and stepping out of onto his Dharma Path? thank god Kerouac captured what was going on in the hip pioneers' cabins in the rare clusters of non-conformity that were the embryos of the entire counter-culture soon to blossom, but obviously most serious broad-minded historians don't love Jack enough to set their studies around his story. so equally thank god we've got one historian Jack-channeler who fills in the sets around jack's characters. Just to be clear, the book Is all about Jack and the people in his life, it's not Mostly a 40s / 50s history book, there's just More of that big picture stuff in here than in any other Jack bio. For me, there was more of an 'ah-ha' in this book, as I understood more all the other people walking along Market Street and filling Times Square and commuting to the suburbs of Queens and Las Gatos.
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