Kerouac: The Definitive Biography [Hardcover]

Paul Maher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2004

This is the authoritative biography of legendary writer, poet, and Beat Generation icon Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), whose novel On the Road catapulted him to the forefront of the literary world and influenced budding writers for generation to come. Here, Paul Maher offers not a linear study of Kerouac's life, but an integrated pastiche of his life and work. He investigates the key relationships that affected his development as an artist, including his three wives, numerous girlfriends, and beloved mother. He also provided insight into Kerouac's spontaneous prose, with its echoes of jazz, in The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, Desolation Angels as well as some of his lesser known works.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Maher, who teaches high school English in Jack Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Mass., and is former editor of the Kerouac Quarterly, aggressively upholds the local hero's literary and personal reputation. The result is less critical biography than gushing fan letter, in which adulation of Kerouac's "personal courage" in adopting an unorthodox writing style trumps any serious literary analysis. Predominantly relying on Kerouac's writings as the basis for his life story raises obvious methodological questions and also loads the account with irrelevant details. More disturbingly, Maher bends over backward to clean up his subject, suggesting Kerouac's persistent expressions of racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia were somehow aberrational or else an unfortunate side effect of alcoholism, for which excuses also abound. The sympathy frequently verges on the ridiculous, as when Maher blames Allen Ginsberg and others for being more concerned about the obscenity trial over "Howl" than about Kerouac's feelings. Previous biographers come under heavy criticism, and though it's rarely stated outright, the main point of contention appears to be the possibility Kerouac had sex with other men. Maher rejects the evidence, accepting on its face Kerouac's claim to have slept with hundreds of women; presented with firsthand testimony from Gore Vidal, he dismisses the account as "sodomous." This hero worship contributes little, if anything, to the debate over the beat generation icon's literary merits. 24 b&w photos not seen by PW.
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Review

Tune in, all you desolation angels and dharma bums, and turn on to Paul Maher's jazzy bio of Kerouac (Vanity Fair )

A useful piece in a difficult puzzle.... sheds new light on a writer of considerable interest. (Eric C. Shoaf Library Journal )

Fit testimony to a tumultuous life. (Trimble, Bob The Greenville News )

Maher brings Kerouac to life as a fascinating but fallible man and artist who reflected and shaped his times. Like the many road trips Kerouac traveled, it's a worthy trip. (The Daily News )

Maher takes a riveting look at the forces that shaped Kerouac's developement into the original hipster artist. (Smoke )

Maher succeeds on many levels and nails the advertised 'definitive biography.' (Gene Sapakoff Charleston Post and Courier )

Maher has unearthed a plethora of fascinating new information. He is, without question, one of the new leaders in interpreting the life of this literary legend whose reputation grows daily. (Douglas Brinkley )

Thoroughly researched and worthy biography... Kerouac is an engaging mix of anecdote and archive. (Ron Butlin Times Literary Supplement )

Thoroughly researched and worthy biography... Kerouac is an engaging mix of anecdote and archive. (Ron Butlin Times Literary Supplement )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 484 pages
• Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing (May 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0878333053
• ISBN-13: 978-0878333059
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,272,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating glimpse into a troubled life, June 2, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Kerouac: The Definitive Biography (Hardcover)

I'm amazed at the review by Publishers's Weekly listed above. If this is a
"gushing fan letter" from Maher to Kerouac, I'd hate to see what Maher would write
about someone he really didn't like!

The greatest strength of this biography, for me, was the detail Maher provides
about Kerouac's daily life. So many biographies give you a series of highlights
and "events" but don't give you any sense of what the subject's life was like on
a day-by-day basis. This biography actually answers the questions "What did
Kerouac do when he got up in the morning? What did he do on an average day?" It
in fact destroys any heroic, romantic image you might have of Kerouac and replaces
it with a detailed image of who Kerouac really was---how he spoke; the way he approached writing;
how he conducted his relationships; his intense, desperate, peripatetic wanderings. I found it to
be a very unusual and interesting glimpse into a very, very troubled life.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A detailed, comprehensive, definitive life of Kerouac, May 15, 2005

By 

Lachlan Jobbins (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kerouac: The Definitive Biography (Hardcover)

Paul Maher's "Kerouac: The Definitive Biography" is by far the most comprehensive and detailed account of Kerouac's life ever written. Unlike previous biographers, Maher has chosen wherever possible to rely for his work on Kerouac's own journals and letters. As such, this biography takes a necessarily different slant to other accounts. Whatever the perils of this approach (Kerouac, like all of us, had a propensity to mythologise his life in his private writings as much as in his novels), this book uncovers a wealth of new information that was previously unavailable.

Maher makes no claims to being a literary critic, so this biography is not the place to look for in-depth analysis of Kerouac's novels. (For that, Tim Hunt's "Kerouac's Crooked Road" is unmatched on "On the Road" and "Visions of Cody", and Gerald Nicosia's "Memory Babe" is great for a `big picture' analysis of the relationships between the life and the work). However, if you are looking to understand the forces that shaped Kerouac, his French-Canadian origins, small town upbringing and Catholicism, there is simply no better place to start.

Because of the unprecedented access Maher has had to the Kerouac archives, this biography uncovers a personal Kerouac that we have not seen before, and much detail on the final years of his life that previous biographers have not revealed. I read "Kerouac: The Definitive Biography" in conjunction with "Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac 1947-1954" and found it entirely consistent. Indeed, I wished that Douglas Brinkley had chosen to include more in the edited journals. As long as Kerouac's life continues to attract as much attention as his work, biographies will continue to be written. But it will be a long time before one as comprehensive as this is published.

P.S. The small matter of the editing inconsistencies in the footnotes is to be addressed in the next printing. This is a minor distraction to an otherwise excellent work, and the only reason I didn't give it five stars. Thoroughly recommended

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely Definitive!, December 30, 2004

By 

Nicholas Carroll (Portland OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kerouac: The Definitive Biography (Hardcover)

This is the sixth biography on Jack Kerouac that I've read and the one I like the most. Though not as comprehensive as "Memory Babe" by Gerald Nicosia (the longest biography on Kerouac thus far) or as analytical as "Subterranean Kerouac", this one was written with greater access to Kerouac's unpublished archives and new interviews by the author of people who knew Kerouac. The author did a respectful job on the subject, but doesn't gloss over the flaws of Kerouac, especially in the later chapters when Kerouac becomes an alcoholic nuisance to everyone who knew and loved him. Its a sad arc of a brilliant life ruined by his own success.

Ann Charters might get the credit for being the first biography of Kerouac, while Tom Clark has the easiest to read biography of Kerouac, but anyone who is a fan of the Beat Generation and the lead writer, should read this one, along with "Memory Babe." If you can stand revisiting Kerouac's life again and again from different perspectives, then try "Subterranean Kerouac" and Tom Clark's biography.

I also love the cover photo of this book and the way chapters are laid out, with various yet relevant quotes to start each chapter, and well thought out chapter titles. He does Kerouac justice, featuring well annotated end notes and other interesting items in an appendix. If you only read one Kerouac biography, this is the one you must read for a good understanding of Kerouac and his difficult life. There is only one major flaw in this book, and its a typo that I'm surprised no one caught before publication. Apparently, the publisher added a sentence or two that Paul Maher wrote to his editor or agent that should not have been included into the narrative. It was confusing at first, but when I figured out what probably happened, I just had to laugh. Even publishing companies aren't perfect about catching mistakes like that before publication.