Family Business: Two Lives in Letters and Poetry [Hardcover]

Allen Ginsberg (Author), Louis Ginsberg (Author), Michael Schumacher (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 2001

A touching look into the heart and family of one of America's greatest poets.

As a literary portrait of a father and son, little can match the eloquence and honesty of this collection of letters, written between the years 1944 and 1976. The illuminating correspondence between Allen Ginsberg and his father, Louis, begins when Allen is a precocious, rebellious college student and charts his ascension as a revolutionary icon in poetry. Their letters are filled with affection, respect, and a healthy dose of argumentative zeal-they debate every major political and artistic issue that faced America in over three decades of extraordinary change.

Their correspondence also reveals the defining moments that shaped Allen's art-his experimentation with LSD, his various love affairs and obsessions, his travels around the globe. We see, from this unique perspective, the crucial process of a poet's widening experience of the world, and how these experiences are translated into his art.

Family Business is not only a personal glimpse into one of our great poets, but also a very moving story of a relationship between a father and a son set against the turbulent world of postwar America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This volume behind the clunky title and unkindly high price presents some of the most astonishing correspondence in American literature. Throughout his adult life, poet and cultural icon Allen Ginsberg exchanged regular letters with his father, Louis, himself a moderately successful lyric poet. They conversed freely about politics, philosophy and poetry (the book offers fascinating insights into the Ginsberg masterpieces Kaddish and Howl); they fought fiercely but without bitterness over Communism, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Vietnam. If such father-son arguments were typical of their era, few can have been so colorfully and affectionately expressed. Allen's letters (he addresses his father as "Louis" and ribs him for his "Polonious[sic]-like tirades") are marked by the vivid, freeform, punctuationless imagery of the beats. Those of his father, surprisingly the more deft correspondent, are wry and campily pedantic: he describes avant-garde poetry as "yawns ticked out in deranged verbiage" and delights in outlandish wordplay ("the hippies want pot in every chicken"). The letters themselves are sensitively edited, Schumacher (author of Dharma Lion, a well-received biography of Ginsberg) supplying biographical context where needed and including a few judiciously chosen interviews and articles. In the end, for all their virtuosity, the Ginsbergs' literary talent emerges as the lesser gift in comparison to their honesty and mutual affection. Anyone interested in either Ginsberg, the beats, American poetry or the '60s should not miss this ferociously tender and comical collection. (Sept.)Forecast; With widespread, favorable reviews, this should have peak sales early on and settle in for a nice steady flow.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Like many fathers and sons, Louis and Allen Ginsberg had their differences, but they were united by their affection for each other and their love of poetry. In this judicious selection of letters written between 1944 and 1976, Schumacher (Dharma Lion: A Critical Biography of Allen Ginsberg) does a fine job of charting the course of their relationship. Many of Allen's letters describe his travels, while Louis's are often a blend of family news and fatherly advice. Poetry and politics are frequently discussed, with the nature of communism, the Vietnam War, and Israeli-Arab relations also coming in for hot debate. Angry arguments aside, however, their correspondence demonstrates a mutual respect, a strong desire for reconciliation, and pride in each other's poetic accomplishments. In addition to the letters, Schumacher reprints My Son the Poet, an article Louis wrote for the Chicago Sun Times Book World. A postscript contains several of Allen's poems to his father. Highly recommended. William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 452 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (September 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582341079
• ISBN-13: 978-1582341071
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,207,177 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Allen Ginsberg was born in 1926 in Newark, New Jersey, a son of Naomi Ginsberg and lyric poet Louis Ginsberg. In 1956 he published his signal poem, Howl, one of the most widely read and translated poems of the century. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awarded the medal of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French minister of culture in 1993, and co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute, the first accredited Buddhist college in the Western world, Allen Ginsberg died on April 5, 1997.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Poetic Conversation Across the Generation Gap, December 23, 2001

By 

Stephen Silberman "writer, Wired Magazine" (SF, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Family Business: Two Lives in Letters and Poetry (Hardcover)

Allen Ginsberg used to joke that poetry was "the family business." These letters between the late author of "Howl" and his poet-father, Louis, are more than a series of poignant exchanges between conservative father and Beat son. They comprise a 30-year conversation between conflicting ideas of the role of poetic tradition in making sense of the difficult world. Allen calls for a "full-scale revolution" in poetry, while Louis - a philosophically minded punster who wrote in rhymed couplets - coyly observes that Allen's comrades seem to think they have "invented honesty."

As the landmark events of the 20th Century unfold around them (the Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam War, and explosive confrontations in the Middle East), they strive to find a common ground in their craft. The elder Ginsberg's tolerance is tested by his son's rebellion. Louis instructs Allen to "exorcise" his muse Neal Cassady as a destructive influence, and he's outraged when his son's longtime companion, Peter Orlovsky, is listed as Allen's "spouse" in Who's Who. Along the way, Allen's fame as the bearded paterfamilias of the flower-power generation grows, and he becomes the most trusted critic of his father's work. Louis comes to recognize that poems like his son's "Kaddish" - a shockingly frank portrayal of Allen's mother Naomi - pointed the way to the future of the art.

Poet Louis Untermeyer once remarked to Louis, "You are good for Allen, and he is good for you." Tracing their journey toward a shared conviction that poetry has the power to change history makes Family Business important reading for us all.