Heart Beat - My Life with Jack And Neal - Carolyn Cassady

 HEART BEAT - MY LIFE WITH JACK AND NEAL - CAROLYN CASSADY

Carolyn Cassady - wife of Neal Cassady, the Dean Moriarty of Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road' - puts her two penn'orth in on the subject of the Beats and I for one welcome it. The problem I have with Heart Beat - My Life With Jack And Neal, however, is the cover. I mean, isn't that one of the worst book covers you've seen in your life? It's almost like it was intentionally designed to put anyone off even being seen dead with this book in their hands. Look at it. I presume it was published as a tie-in for the movie of the same name starring Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek and John Heard? A movie I've not seen, I might add, but am now determined to watch just to find out if it could possibly be as bad as it looks.

The Beats was always a bit of a boys' club but with that much homosexuality running through it, it should hardly be surprising. Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs were always rampant when it came to man-love but did Kerouac and Dean Cassady ever have 'relations'? I'm not sure, but it's obvious they were but a cigarette paper away from it. As a sort of surrogate love, in stepped Carolyn Cassady who evidently loved both her husband and Kerouac equally and so with good intentions slept with both.

Presumably ménage à trois' and polyamorous relationships have always been with us since time immemorial but to read about the one taking place between Kerouac and Neal and Carolyn Cassady in America of 1952 is heart-warming particularly because the usual depiction of Fifties America is as a decade of anti-communist, ultraconservatism.

Unfortunately, Heart Beat is slim pickings though the fact that it's written from a woman's point of view from within the inner circle of the original Beat writers lends a currency to what is revealed. Taking up a relationship with Kerouac whilst he's living at the Cassady's house is not only encouraged by her husband but fully enabled by him. Neal Cassady was quite the cuckold. The outcome, however, is complicated because everything is unspoken and whilst true feelings are on display it's obvious that Neal is the lynch-pin and both Kerouac and Carolyn bend to his mood swings.

Of possibly more interest to the keen Beat aficionado are the letters reproduced throughout the book between Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac and both the Cassadys. There's one in particular from Ginsberg to Neal and Carolyn where after receiving a copy of the completed manuscript of On The Road, Ginsberg is fuming and accusing Kerouac of self-sabotage: 'It's a holy mess,' he writes 'It's great all right but he did everything he could to fuck it up with a lot of meaningless bullshit. Page after page of surrealist free association doesn't make sense to anybody. I don't think it can be published anywhere in its present state. Why is he tempting rejection and fate? Fucking spoiled child. He done fuck up his writing money-wise and also writing-wise.'

On The Road, of course, went on to be recognized as - if not a work of genius - a work of huge importance. Ginsberg's criticism and rejection of the manuscript, however, hit Kerouac hard. So much so, in fact, that according to another letter written a little after to the Cassadys, Kerouac hinted at withdrawing from writing and even withdrawing from the world forever.

Luckily for us, Kerouac changed his mind and went on to write a series of books that came to define a generation. It's probably fair to say, even, that without Kerouac's influence the world wouldn't be quite the same culturally as it is today. Without his influence, Carolyn Cassady would certainly never have written Heart Beat, and that in itself would be a shame because if we can forget about the cover for a moment, it's actually a pretty enjoyable read.

John Serpico