Use My Name

With this fascinating new book, Jim Jones debunks many of the myths
surrounding the life and times of Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road. Jones
concentrates on those whose lives were most affected by Kerouac: daughter Jan
Kerouac, wives Edie Parker, Joan Haverty, and Stella Sampac, as well as nephew
Paul Blake Jr.' Use My Name: Jack Kerouac's Forgotten Families takes its title
from advice given to Jan during her second and final meeting with Jack, who
encouraged her to profit from the surname she shared with the famous author of
On the Road. Sadly, not one of these individuals so closely tied to Kerouac
seems to have benefited from the connection, as Jones discovers in his in-
depth interview with Jan. She discusses at length her fifteen months as a
prostitute, her own divorces, her hospitalization, and her life as an author,
including a wild European book tour for Baby Driver. Although Kerouac is one
of the most "biographied" American writers of our time, Jones offers a new
perspective on the "King of the Beats" and his generation, one from which
formerly marginalized figures in the Kerouac story -- particularly women --
become strong, central characters. He also exposes the cut-throat wheeling and
dealing that has plagued the Kerouac estate, and which continues today as the
various players do battle over the legacy of one of the counterculture's
biggest idols.