Customer Reviews

Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
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1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book,written by Carolyn Cassady, wife of famed beat rebel Neal Cassady, offers us a glimpse of the real life and times of the beat poets. The book begins with the tale of how Neal and Carolyn met and ends with his untimely death in Mexico.

Carolyn recounts her twenty-some years of the tumultuos relationship with Neal and his contemporaries which include, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Ken Kesey, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, et al. Besides serving as a time-line for the beat generation you will also find a plethora of letters and writings that give a true feel of the period.

After reading this book I came away with a much better insight to the fictional works of Kerouac. In fact the book is as much about Kerouac as it is Cassady.

This work gives an in-depth "taste" of the beat period from New York to San Francisco and it's eventual metamorphosis in the sixties.

As great as the Beat fiction is, and life-changing as On the Road is, we get too caught up with the fictitive personas of the Beats. It's nice to see the side of Kerouac, Cassady, and Ginsberg that didn't make it into the novels. I'm sure Carolyn's viewpoint is skewed a little, but so is what we read in On the Road. Between her work and their work we can get a picture of what they were like, not as legends, but as men.

There are times when Carolyn bogs down with too much detail, or too much whining, or patches that just aren't great writing, but all in all it is a good biography, autobiography, and novel.

If you want to know more, here is a good place to start, along with these books, though you probably have read them by now: Kerouac's On the Road and The Dharma Bums; Cassady's The First Third; Perry and Babb's On the Bus; Ginsberg's Howl

A recent appetite for any and all written about Beat Generation(Kerouac, Ginsberg, et al), Ken Kesey and Merry Pranksters led me "Off The Road" while browsing at my local library. I found this book insightful and entertaining and yet knew the downside as Neal's life speeds Furthur and Furthur out of control. I was happy to read of NC's unending love for his three offspring and his true devotion to his friends, even though that comradeship was the foundation for his doomed relationship with Carolyn. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a feel for the late 50's and early 60's that altered many lives and lifestyles.

This book is all right, I must say that I enjoy the fact that Carolyn owns up to her own faults, such as her jealousy and such. I think that it is easy to judge her from 50 years down the line because so much has changed socially. She fell in love with Cassady at a time where women didn't just get up and leave their men if they were cheated on. Divorce was not as common as it is now. The women of the beat generation lived life on the edge of suburbanism. Most of them found themselves in the unusual and yet somehow liberating situation of being the primary breadwinner. I found Carolyn Cassady's biography to be an interesting account of an intelligent and talented woman who walked the line between her own more old fashioned sense of morality and the life Neal Cassady introduced her to. She mostly seemed to want his friends to go away. I think that he still would have been as wild if they did go away, he would have just found new friends. I don't blame her bitter attitude toward a lot of his friends though. It is a frustrating experience when someone's friends see only the party side of them and don't see what it does to the person's family.

Carolyn did, unfortunately, hang tight for a while to her belief that she could hold onto her husband. Hard to say if her version of their relationship is accurate or not. I do believe her account of what happened, but I also believe that he was a smooth talking guy who probably had similar conversations with his other two wives as well as all those other women. This obviously has to be a biased book, it involves the woman's marriage, I should not expect her to be able to look at things too objectively.

I guess the reason I call this book only "all right" is in part for selfish reasons (I like Neal Cassady, I like Allen Ginsberg, I like the Grateful Dead, I like Ken Kesey), the same things I appreciate about the book, such as her bitterness and jealousy, are the same things that kept me from fully enjoying it. The other reason I call this book merely "all right" is because Carolyn is not a writer. Joyce Johnson's memoir "Minor Characters" blows Cassady out of the water. While Cassady's life seems to have revolved around her husband, Johnson's somewhat brief affair with Kerouac is not her only claim to fame. She is an author in her own right and quite a good one. So Cassady's book reads more like a biography and Johnson's more like a novel. Which is all right. But still kept the book from being the sort of thing I would reread over and over.

And for the record, to respond to someone's questions about the author's facts - I don't believe Carolyn states that Kerouac died on Oct. 31, but rather that is when she found out about it. Also, he did not die on the 20th, but rather the 21st.

It was interesting hearing about Kerouac & Cassady
from a woman's point of view, especially a woman who
was so intimately connected to the dynamic duo. She
dwelt on the negative ramifications a bit too much for
my taste, but then again, these have never been really
examined in much detail prior to this books release.
For those of you who have at least a passing interest
in the beats, I would recommend this book.

Carolyn Cassady's Off the Road is just as essential to understanding the beat movement as any other book. She writes in a style that is very easy to relate to, and puts events in a never before seen perspective that enlightens the reader. She is honest and heartfelt in her recollections, and you feel as though you have really learned and gotten to know each of her characters. This book is really one of my favorites and one that I am sure I will read again and again.

A welcome slip through a portal into an age overshadowed by the sixties and into the lives of those who were unkowingly shaping an entire genre of literature. Carolyn's account reads honestly while balanced perfectly with letter excerpts to and from Neal, Jack and Allen. No other biography allows the reader into the lives of these characters so seamlessly, making for the most enjoyable peephole into the lives of the individuals' who were later to become known collectively as the Beat Generation. (If you saw the movie, fret not, the book is leaps and bounds better!)

I thought this was a really great book. I had read part of Kerouac's On the Road a couple times but hadn't gotten all the way through it. By chance I saw this book and decided to read it. It tells the story from a different side, a more rational and real side than in On the Road. It makes you realize that these people who were Beat heros were really just sad, real people who died young. Carolyn Cassady is a great storyteller. I highly recommend this book.

The flipside of "On the Road." The wife of Neal Cassady gives a true portrait of what life must have really been like with the Beats. She documents all of this well, with letters from Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and etc. She is truly suffering for her man and yet, still maintaining a family life. After Neal got tired of the road he always had a home to come back to, thanks to Carolyn. She was the real hero of the Beats, providing a backbone, base and support for their efforts. Always suffering due to Neal's affairs and drug abuse, she was a heroine before Women's Liberation became the norm. She shows that the Beat life was not all the good times and Merry Prankstering and travel, that the other books of that generation portrays. There is a sleaziness to Neal at times, always using people for his benefit and yet there is the wonderful loving father always giving attention to his children. A great look into both sides of a generation that generally gets only one view.

One is reminded of Tyutchev's "Blessed is he who has visited life in its fatal moments." I doubt that for even one moment would I want to have been at one of those "fatal" moments which appear at times in our species. I'm happy living an average everyday life.
Carolyn Cassady could have said, "No," any number of times, but an inner angel kept her on her road. Something in her told her not to depart from - and to be with - this man and these men at the birth of something new, and where many, many other women would have packed up, she stayed, to her great credit. Not that she was entirely without flaw perhaps, but she was truly a very lovely soul, and to read this book by her on that very unique period and people is, in a way, a privilege.