Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac [Paperback]

Ellis Amburn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 1999

Drawing upon original interviews and his own relationship with Kerouac, Ellis Amburn reveals an inner man who has not appeared in any previous biography-a man torn by his conflicting desires and beliefs. Subterranean Kerouac has been singled out as one of the most significant biographies to appear in years, and it shows how Kerouac struggled throughout his life with poverty, alcoholism, and his doubts about his own lifestyle of substance abuse, indolence, and promiscuity.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

At the heart of Jack Kerouac's hidden life is the conflict between his "homoerotically inclined life and the blustering masculinity" he felt compelled to demonstrate. As a youth in Lowell, Massachusetts, Kerouac was a football hero, brash and rowdy, pursued by the local coeds. But his strongest emotions focused on an artistic high school friend, Sammy Sampas, whose physical advances Jack ultimately rejected and forever mourned. This failure to resolve his emotional and sexual identity set into motion Kerouac's two-headed monster of creativity and self-destruction.

Though his novels depict rampant sexual freedom and distinguish him as a stylistic innovator, Kerouac himself was reined in by the taboos and social constrictions of the 1930s and '40s. Friendships with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and other beat originals helped him indulge the homosexual side of his nature. Yet the internal conflicts raged, and running along with them were Kerouac's Benzedrine and alcohol addictions.

While Amburn's biography is rich with the salacious adventures of hipsterism (trysts with Ginsberg between parked trucks in Greenwich Village; the frenetic cross-country trips immortalized in On the Road; the Kerouac Sex List, which tells exactly with whom and how many times), he takes a serious look at the twisted Kerouac psyche. Amburn has a unique vantage point as Kerouac's last editor, and we benefit from their friendship with the confidential details Kerouac supplied during the editing process. Kerouac often insisted that "every word I write is true," but Amburn readers discover a man tortured by the dueling sides of his own divided nature. --Joan Urban --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), the Beat novelist whose road adventures inspired a rebellious generation, was, according to this often startling, unflinching biography, a self-destructive alcoholic egomaniac who believed he was Shakespeare and Balzac in previous reincarnations, an amphetamine addict, a misogynist, an anti-Semite and a "homophobic homoerotic" who concealed his bisexual identity through gay bashing, both verbal and physical. Yet Amburn?biographer of Buddy Holly, Janis Joplin and Roy Orbison, and editor of two of Kerouac's novels (Desolation Angels; Vanity of Duluoz)?is not a debunker. This well-researched biography is filled with questionable claims: e.g., Kerouac is "one of the major novelists of the twentieth century"; "In popularizing Buddhism and redefining morality for a generation, [his] spiritual impact on America was one of the strongest since that of Cotton Mather." None of the Beats or their circle?Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Norman Mailer?comes off well in Amburn's relentless cataloguing of uninhibited lives, sexual excesses, irresponsible behavior and self-promotion. Readers may find this biography tedious and exhausting. Photos. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (October 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312206771
• ISBN-13: 978-0312206772
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,207,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Flawed But Valuable Kerouac Biography, January 5, 2002

By 

Gregg Robinson (Skokie, Il USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac (Hardcover)

Ellis Amburn's thesis is that Kerouac's personality and art were shaped by his struggle to reconcile his macho side with his latent homosexuality. His argument is not altogether convincing but thankfully it is basically a minor theme in what is otherwise an excellent biography. And Amburn's theme does raise valid unanswered questions about Kerouac's sexuality. Ginsberg's homosexuality is, of course, no secret, and both he and Kerouac acknowledge that there was some activity between them. And Neal Cassady's attempted hustle of the homosexual driver of the "fag Plymouth" in the motel scene in "On the Road" suggests that he was probably bisexual. But Kerouac himself is purposely vague on the details of his own homosexuality, so Amburn's interest is justified.
Anyone familiar with Kerouacs work, however, will likely have problems accepting Amburn's argument. Conflict over sexual ambivalence simply seems inadequate to explain Kerouac's obsession with life and death, joy and suffering, and man's relationship with God. Certainly Kerouac's loss of his brother Gerard at age 4 had a greater impact on his art than did reconciling whatever homoerotic feelings he had with his self-preferred image as a macho writer.
Many critics have apparently dismissed Amburn's book altogether. The fact that the chapters have been given ridiculously purple titles like "Muscles, Meat, and Metaphysics", and "Sucking Asses to Get Published" doesn't add much to the book's claim to respectibility. ButI found it a valuable and highly readable biography, which presents a picture of the author which I found more accessible and understandable than the Charters or Nicosia books. His research seems sound enough,and there are extensive notes and references, many from JK himself.
Amburn was Kerouac's last editor (he edited "Big Sur") and his comments on working with Kerouac are interesting in their own right, especially when he comes out and asks Kerouac just what he meant in certain ambiguous passages. He also presents numerous details that are omitted or glossed over in the other books, such as the details of the Kammerer murder and the exact nature of Bill Canastra's gruesome death during a subway prank. After reading his book I have a much better understanding of Kerouac's football career, the attraction he felt for Borroughs, and his comples relationship with his mother and with women in general. Details like this flesh out the picture, and do much to make Kerouac's personality more understandable.
I disagree with those who denigrate this book, and after two readings, it has become my favorite Kerouac biography. That Amburn's central thesis doesn't quite hold water (for me, at least) does nothing to lessen the value of this very enjoyable book.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Offers respect, September 17, 2001

By 

Author Brian Wallace (Mind Transmission, Inc.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac (Paperback)

This book is a tricky one.

It's interesting to read a work that was so elegantly written and thoroughly researched but with the obvious agenda to "out" a man who is already well-known to have been "bisexual" in his activities. A credit to the author is that he does freely admit Kerouac's love (and in fact preference) for beautiful women, but do we as readers really need a diatribe about how wholesome homosexuality is?

It's kind of a stretch to blame most of Kerouac's problems on his supposed conflict between hetero and homo leanings. Sexuality seems more a spectrum that is embraced by bisexuals, not a stark decision that must be made on either the "hetero" or "homo" side. Kerouac seemed to revel in his openness, not always torment over it! Obviously gays experienced much discrimination in the fifties and Kerouac probably felt a bit of this tension. Many readers do not need to hear so much about his sexual feelings/behaviors in general and grandiose psychological theories about the underpinnings of his conflicts and genius.

The substantive portions on Kerouac's strivings as an artist and goal toward publishing are very well-written and quite informative. I really felt that I was taken into the mind of this ambitious genius beat writer.

Amburn's discourses on his closeness to Kerouac did not upset me; they seemed like ingenuous efforts to convey his fondness for Kerouac.

The football content was treated thoroughly and reverentially, which I enjoyed. Also, Subterranean sheds much light on the real itinerant nature of Kerouac, his undying love for his mother, and a variety of other tidbits seemingly culled from trusted sources.

Mainly the book is intelligently written, engrossing, and the fact that it's pissing off a lot of people would have probably warmed Jack's heart.

This book meets my number one criterion for a biography about a person who is no longer with us (if you can ever justify writing one) - that it is written mostly objectively, and with a lot of respect. This one successfully does just that.

I'm raising a glass right now.

B. Wallace/author/Labyrinth of Chaos

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bound to provoke a resurgence of interest in Kerouac, October 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Subterranean Kerouac: The Hidden Life of Jack Kerouac (Hardcover)

Ellis Amburn's biographical account of Jack Kerouac is a phenomenal undertaking of this brilliant writer's life. To paraphrase, Kerouac insisted that he wrote the truth as he saw it. Kerouac's life story as Amburn writes it, is full of the lurid (Kerouac's homosexual past heterosexual & homosexual activity and substance abuse may far exceed the comfort level of readers) is an inverse tragic story -- Kerouac's genius could have taken him to the heights of one of the greatest American writers (& Kerouac would have thought so himself, too), rather than that of the Beat period. Amburn certainly conveys that sense of a broken promise in Kerouac. Amburn's research is meticulous, being that he was Kerouac editor; yet, his account of Kerouac is fond and the tone of the biography is that of a close friend. You will be heartbroken as you ride the crests and valleys of Jack's life. It has provoked my interest in reading other biographical accounts of Kerouac, as well my shelved copies of Kerouac's work.