Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac

This is a brief introduction to Memory Babe, A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac by Gerald Nicosia. Without a doubt, this is a full a portrait of Jack's life as any biography has yet delivered. It is very thorough about both the life and work, especially the life. We learn more or less everything that happened to Jack - from his French-Canadian ancestry, his childhood in Lowell Massachusetts to his adventures in the Merchant Marines, New York City, relationships with 'the Beats' poets and writers, and of course, his struggles with fame, fortune and the bottle...
I have been a Kerouac fan for some time - how can you like writing and not be? His language is full of life, energy, and has moments of transcendent beauty unlike any other writer. Its breath is one of youth, hope and new possibilities - no joke! What feeling is there better to capture in writing?

I came to this biography via On The Road (1957) and Big Sur (1962), which read together act as bookends to Kerouac's writing life. I still find it incredible - and here Memory Babe is particular adept at unravelling the life and the myth - that Kerouac wrote so many of his novels before his first (On The Road) was even published.

Overall, Gerald Nicosia's book is an impressive achievement, and my impression is that in its insistence to be faithful to all sides of every point of view on Kerouac, it does achieve a greater objectivity than other Kerouac biographies. At 767 pages, you would hope so. If you are as interested in Kerouac the eternal contradiction - both shy and gregarious, industrious and lazy, free-spirited and dogmatic, soaring spiritual writer, and alcoholic self-abuser - then this book is for you.

Read it and weep!