Door Wide Open

9780670890408

0670890405

On a blind date in Greenwich Village set up by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac met Joyce Glassman in January of 1957, nine months before he became famous overnight with the publication of On the Road. She was an adventurous, independent-minded, twenty-one year old, who earned her keep as a secretary, but who already had a publisher interested in her first novel. He was running on empty at thirty-five, even before he was thrust into the spotlight. "I don't like blondes," Kerouac warned her the first night they spent together, but he kept coming back to her during nearly two years of restless movement. This unique book, containing the many letters the two of them wrote to each other whenever Jack was in transit, reveals a surprising side of Kerouac--his capacity for forming a tender bond with a woman who shared his passion for writing. It also gives a vivid picture of what it took to be young, female, & Beat in the Cold War fifties. Reflecting upon these tumultuous years Johnson seamlessly interweaves letters & commentary, making the story of her love affair with Kerouac as compelling as an epistolary novel.