Customer Reviews

Baby Driver

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jan Kerouac, to me filled a void with her book that had always been left after having read her fathers work. I was able to appriciate Baby Driver not just as an enjoyable read but also really relate to to it. Comparisons to Jack Kerouac aside, the engrossing story and the unique way in which Ms.Kerouac presented the sequence of events in her life as the events and not as the "sequence" were what made me love this book. My own copy of this book is in horrible repair, the cover taped together, pages still glued to one another in various sized clumps yet none of the clumps are actually attached to the cover itself any more. I've been looking for a new copy for years. Even the City Lights bookstore failed to turn up anything. While the old jacket cover was more endearing I'm looking forward to a new copy, so that I can once again share this book with friends. As is usually the case with the works of so many other women writers, this book has been unnoticed by most, yet is greatly enjoyed by the few of us lucky enough to stumble on to it.

Reading BABY DRIVER allows the reader to feel close to this abandoned daughter, who, in spite of all hardships, moved constantly forward through life. Her foundation was her mother, Joan Haverty, her brother, David, and her husband, John Lash. These three people loved Jan for being Jan, not because she was Jack Kerouac's daughter. And although she imitated her father--consciously or subconsciously--this is her "story about myself." Her decision not to focus upon her famous father creates a sense that is palpable, that while Jack went about his life, focusing constantly on himself through introspection and self-destruction, Jan went about hers with love, searching, and optimism. Her voice is often naive, and therefore, revealing of the pain she could not see or admit to. She never expresses the anger she feels too deeply to touch, instead seeking danger, excesses, and adventure. In the end, she always has the three most important people in her life to return to, and they always, always accept her unconditionally. Looking past her forays into prostitution, drugs and petty crime, a portrait emerges of a brave, determined person, capable of love, but with a big hole in her own life that was never filled by an abandoning father.

Jan Kerouac, Jack Kerouac's only child grew up in a chaotic, nomadic childhood that swept her from the poverty-stricken tenements of Lower East Side New York to blissful shores of a tiny Mexican village. Intelligent, articulate and restlest, Kerouac was already unconsciously emulating her famous father's boozy itinerant lifestyle when she began dropping acid at the age of 12. By fifteen, pregnant by an ex-boyfriend and on the run from juvenile authorities intent upon locking her up, Jan Kerouac set out on a remarkable journey of self-discovery that she chronicles in this beautiful, absorbing memoir. This 10-year odyssey meanders from New York City to Sante Fe with side rips to Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia and Peru. Along the way, Jan introduces the reader to a motley assortment of characters including philosophical junkies, a vengeful witch, a matter of fact part time hooker and her schizophrenic Argentinean lvoer, Miguel, who hears murderous voices in his head urging him to kill her. Although this was Kerouac's first book, she was already a mesmerizing storyteller fearlessly exposing her flaws, bad choices and mistakes while somehow maintaining her dignity and sense of humor in the worst situations including a stint as a prostitute. Jan is also a very sensual writer whose lyrical prose vividly evokes the sights, sounds and smells of her settings. "After a spell, one of our favorite creatures came out to intertain us. The Fred Astaire spider, we called him. He was a brilliant orandge with a large pad on the end of each foot -- they loooked like actual shoes. Right into the pool of lamplight on the floor he would leap take a sort of bow, putting four of his legs together on one side and then lean over. Then the spider would do the most frenzied, intricate footwork, twisting, hopping, kicking with just one leg, then another." "Baby Driver" captures perfectly the drug infused, delirious beauty of a time when finding yourself meant hitting the road to seek adventure and experience life at its most intense and chaotic.

The only reason I bought this book was because I thought it would be a nice edition to my beloved beat library. I figured it would be a mediocre attempt by a famous authors daughter to cash in on her fathers name. Wow was I ever wrong! Jan had an exceptional gift for writing descriptive narratives as we follow her adventures from the run-down tenements in NYC to eventually Washington. Each chapter switches between her childhood recollections to her adult life until the book comes full circle in the end and the two time periods connect. Brilliant. I often found myself thinking about the book during the day and couldn't wait to read more. It's an easy uncomplicated read for those who may have been tripped up by dad's spontaneous prose.

My only wish was that Jan embellished more on her thought process and feelings during her adventures. Often she just reports on the incidents without expounding what she thought/felt during that time or what compelled her to do what she did. But who knows, maybe she didn't know either and was just kinda living life.

What a tragic life - anyone interested in human psychology will get a wild ride with this one. One can only guess what a different life she would have led if Jack was more involved in her life.

Daughter Jan Kerouac's own written adventure can actually be read w/ pleasure and not w/ tedium. The adventure itself has some awfully surprising twists and turns, would make a great film, and ends most unexpectedly.

Forget the last name and the heritage, this is a well written book about a life fully lived and extremely tragic at times. She met with her father rarely, but she inherited much. His lifestyle became her's and she was the embodiment of the Hippie spirit of the 1960's. The book begins with her having a miscarriage in Mexico and doesn't get much happier. The style and lifestyle are close to her father's but she is much more. It is not just a feminist view or emerging feminist view, it is story of a person on an adventure. She is one of the first feminist voices to come out of the Woodstock generation and asserts herself with this book. If you are looking for a happy read forget it. But Jan's first book is a great look into two different emerging voices and movements. For any fan of the Beats this is a nice step into the next generation.

It is exceedingly rare when the child of a famous writer who tries to be a writer too doesn't embarrass him or herself in the process. Jan is one of those rare exceptions where she actually has the talent to match her last name. I have read this book many times. It is most excellent.

Interesting, if not sad, stories by and about Jack Kerouac's daughter. Do we indeed pay for the sins of our father's?

Claire DeNiro says:
I have read Baby Driver and Trainsong, and am haunted by this
woman's journey. She is most definetly Jack Kerouac's daughter,
the DNA is in the writing. I am angry with him for ignoring her and
leaving her like he did, she was fearless and had no safety net, unlike him who would retreat to the safety of his middle class mother's home for protection when it was all too much. Baby Driver: A Story About MyselfBaby Driver: A Story About Myself