Customer Reviews

Use My Name: Jack Kerouac's Forgotten Families

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This is perhaps the worst book I ever was forced to read. Luckily, I didn't pay full price. This is a highly problematic book, ethically, structurally, and intellectually.

First, it is absolutely not scholarly, despite its self-promotion. There are no footnotes or bibliography and very little original research except some interviews with Jan Kerouac which she apparently asked him not to use. He mostly just summarizes other biographies without referencing them. It would be considered plagiarism in most college classrooms. Any serious student or researcher can feel free to ignore this book.

Second, it is extremely poorly written. Jones tries to milk about twenty pages of material into a whole book. He frequently re-tells the same story or one liner over and over again. He even plagiarizes himself. In the last paragraph of the second-to-last chapter, he admits to "repeating the description of some events as many as five times." One example is that Chapter 8 is a re-wording of Chapter 7, nothing new. Apparently, proofreading and editing were not among his talents and no editor wanted to touch it. The worst part of the repetition is that he tells you the best parts in the first chapter, making the rest of the book boring.

Third, while the author occasionally pretends to be weighing "evidence," his bias, especially against Jan Kerouac (and in favor of the Sampas family who he takes pains not to offend), is blatant and even creepy. Since the Sampas family had not yet released Kerouac's archive when the author wrote the book, it is easy to surmise he dared not offend this family less his access be denied for any future project. He trashes Gerald Nicosia (the mortal enemy of the Sampas family) each chance he gets, despite the fact that Nicosia is considered a reputable scholar. Too much personal stuff creeps into this book and the unsuspecting reader comes out with a biased, tabloid-like picture.

Fourth, there is another serious ethical issue here that Jones pretends to show some awareness of when he calls himself a "parasite." That is, after Jan Kerouac decides that she doesn't want material used from an interview the night before (during which he coaxed her to discuss a brief period of prostitution in her life) he leaves with the tapes anyway and bases most of the book on them. Since she never signed releases (required by universities when doing oral history and considered the only ethical procedure), it is highly problematic. Of course, he waits until she dies to use this material. But the ethical dilemma does not die with Jan Kerouac. Jones bases so much of the book on 7 hours of interviews that he seems like a vulture picking at her body and memory. I felt so uncomfortable reading this over and over and over.

To the Kerouac fans, there isn't really anything new here. I only recommend this book if you have read absolutely everything else and need another Kerouac-related fix. But warn that you might feel dirty after reading this one.

Basic overview of the author's relationship to Jan Kerouac - he interviewed her to do her biography, this went all right for a while and she decided she did not like him anymore. Seems to be no real reason for this but it happened anyway. Jones does not seem hurt by this and still sees Kerouac as an interesting and worthy subject.

I think this is an interesting area not tapped into very much, since Jan and Jack had no relationship whatsoever, though anyone who has read her books can tell that he had a major impact on her life. It is hard enough to have an absent father. Make that father Jack Kerouac and it gets even more difficult. What I found even more interesting is the interviews with Jack's nephew, who I have never seen anything written up on before this book, which is probably because he seems to be a pleasant and well adjusted fellow who had a good and healthy relationship with his uncle, but still interesting to read about here nonetheless. As for Jan, it is hard to take what she says at face value, since she seems to have forgotten a lot of what she says has happened to her or changes it from time to time. But I don't know how much of that might be because it didn't happen quite as she either remembered it at the time of interviewing or writing her books or whether it was just the effects of all she had done in her life. But overall that didn't really matter, the reader really gets the essence of who Jan Kerouac was in this book. She was far more rebellious than her father ever was and far more wild. Her mother couldn't control her and it doesn't sound as if she really tried. So whether small details are true or not seems unimportant when looking at her overall life. She was a tough lady who, sadly, had a lot of problems with drugs, alcohol, and men.

I had some issues with the author using this book as a way to make a case for the Sampas family. While I do agree that they take some unnecessary flack from people in general, the author uses having a book published on Jan Kerouac to go on and on about the politics surrounding Jan and the Sampas family. While I think this info. is definitely helpful, there really are two sides to every story and Jones goes on and on ad naseum about how wonderful and benevolent the Sampas family are and how they are really the victims while Gerald Nicosia is a big bad evil person exploiting Jan and her famous father. I am not saying he couldn't be right, only that, despite what the author suggests, both sides probably have good points. And I must admit that it bothers me that, in writing a book about how strong Jan Kerouac was in spite of those pesky human vulnerabilities, he makes her out to be a victim in the end. His book discusses how she would not allow men to take advantage of her and how she was overall a strong sort of person, and then, in taking up his crusade against Gerald Nicosia, he completely turns around and discusses how Nicosia manipulated her and turned her into a total victim. Hmmm. Mostly it just left me wondering at Jones's point - did he write the book to give insight into Jan's life, or to take sides in a legal battle?

well it certainly was an eye opener to greed and what a messed up family they were........ to bad to bad about alot of things huh ... but still a good book for any kerouac fanatic ... a good thing to have in your collection on kerouac

I hope to meet author at 12th annual Lowell Celebrates Jack Kerouac Days in Lowell---early October...discuss his forthcoming related title-