Customer Reviews

Nobody's Wife: The Smart Aleck and the King of Beats

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With a preface by Jack Kerouac's only daughter, Jan Kerouac, this memoir by his second wife, author Joan Haverty Kerouac, and a forward by seminal Kerouac biographer Ann Charters, makes it a must-read book on a very sad segment of Kerouac history. The short-lived marriage was loveless and tempestuous and Haverty was disgusted by Jack's total lack of intimacy and his unsuccessfully pressuring her to have three-way sex with his sidekick Neal Cassady. When Jack learned Joan was pregnant, he tried to make Joan abort Jan, then walked out on her. He refused to ever acknowledge Jan as his daughter despite positive paternity tests, and they met only twice before her untimely death, her only legacy from him a cork from a bottle of sherry Kerouac dashed out to buy during a visit. Kerouac left Joan and Jan absolutely nothing from his estate, now worth millions and being peddled off by the the greedy mitts of John Sampas, nephew of his deceased third wife, Stella Sampas, despite Kerouac's missive just before his death that he did not want to leave "the Greeks" anything. Gerald Nicosia, author of the definitive Kerouac biography "Memory Babe", unsuccesfully fought for years to help Jan Kerouac recover from the estate. While not as erudite and informative as Carolyn Cassady's "Off the Road", this is another example of how badly Kerouac treated and disposed of his women as a sociopathological part of his confused sexuality.

I happened upon this book after reading a passage from the book "Jack Kerouac's American Journey" by Paul Maher. My mother (deceased 2007) was first cousin to Bill and Fred Cannastra. I only knew slight facts of Bill's death from an old clipping in my mother's memory books. I never heard of Joan Haverty, nor knew anything about the personal life of Jack Kerouac. Nor did I know that Bill hung with this group of people before he died. I thoroughly enjoyed the story from Joan's perspective and it was a sad and challenging life she created for herself. Great picture into a small fraction of the Beat Generation members.

I picked this book up expecting to skim a few pages and instead read the whole story in one day. An honest look at the way Kerouac and his crowd viewed women. Sad that these men caused irreparable harm under the guise of creating a new way to write. They thought too much of themselves and their desires and imploded in the destruction they left for others. Had they not been so self centered they might have done some good for the many who were duped into believing that Jack and his boys were on to something.

As a spirited but naive young woman, the author endured a brief and frustrating marriage to Jack Kerouac. This is a memoir of that time in her life, written when she was a middle aged woman struggling with terminal cancer. Joan Haverty wanted more out of life than women were expected to have: ideas, adventures, answers to the Big Questions. Her marriage to Kerouac was a misguided attempt to find those things through a relationship with a man who appeared to have them all. Appearances, she quickly learned, were not to be trusted.

She left Kerouac (and his mother) sadder, wiser, and pregnant with a daughter whom he refused to acknowledge.

I am not a fan of Kerouac, and don't really understand why he - or his writing - has been so admired. However, I read this book to find out more about the real man behind the legend. I did learn a little about Kerouac, but I was more moved by the story of Hagerty's struggle to retain her independence of mind.

I wish she had lived to write more books.