Baby Driver

by Jan Kerouac

Book Overview

Just as Jack Kerouac captured the beat of the '50s, his daughter captured the rhythm of the generation that followed. With a graceful, often disturbing detachment and a spellbinding gift for... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0030625386
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Chaotic lyrical coming of age story

Jan Kerouac, Jack Kerouac's only child grew up in a chaotic, nomadic childhood that swept her from the poverty-stricken tenements of Lower East Side New York to blissful shores of a tiny Mexican village. Intelligent, articulate and restlest, Kerouac was already unconsciously emulating her famous father's boozy itinerant lifestyle when she began dropping acid at the age of 12. By fifteen, pregnant by an ex-boyfriend and on the run from juvenile authorities intent upon locking her up, Jan Kerouac set out on a remarkable journey of self-discovery that she chronicles in this beautiful, absorbing memoir. This 10-year odyssey meanders from New York City to Sante Fe with side rips to Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia and Peru. Along the way, Jan introduces the reader to a motley assortment of characters including philosophical junkies, a vengeful witch, a matter of fact part time hooker and her schizophrenic Argentinean lvoer, Miguel, who hears murderous voices in his head urging him to kill her. Although this was Kerouac's first book, she was already a mesmerizing storyteller fearlessly exposing her flaws, bad choices and mistakes while somehow maintaining her dignity and sense of humor in the worst situations including a stint as a prostitute. Jan is also a very sensual writer whose lyrical prose vividly evokes the sights, sounds and smells of her settings. "After a spell, one of our favorite creatures came out to intertain us. The Fred Astaire spider, we called him. He was a brilliant orandge with a large pad on the end of each foot -- they loooked like actual shoes. Right into the pool of lamplight on the floor he would leap take a sort of bow, putting four of his legs together on one side and then lean over. Then the spider would do the most frenzied, intricate footwork, twisting, hopping, kicking with just one leg, then another." "Baby Driver" captures perfectly the drug infused, delirious beauty of a time when finding yourself meant hitting the road to seek adventure and experience life at its most intense and chaotic.

What a surprise

The only reason I bought this book was because I thought it would be a nice edition to my beloved beat library. I figured it would be a mediocre attempt by a famous authors daughter to cash in on her fathers name. Wow was I ever wrong! Jan had an exceptional gift for writing descriptive narratives as we follow her adventures from the run-down tenements in NYC to eventually Washington. Each chapter switches between her childhood recollections to her adult life until the book comes full circle in the end and the two time periods connect. Brilliant. I often found myself thinking about the book during the day and couldn't wait to read more. It's an easy uncomplicated read for those who may have been tripped up by dad's spontaneous prose. My only wish was that Jan embellished more on her thought process and feelings during her adventures. Often she just reports on the incidents without expounding what she thought/felt during that time or what compelled her to do what she did. But who knows, maybe she didn't know either and was just kinda living life.

one of the greatest semi-autobiographical books ever written

Jan Kerouac, to me filled a void with her book that had always been left after having read her fathers work. I was able to appriciate Baby Driver not just as an enjoyable read but also really relate to to it. Comparisons to Jack Kerouac aside, the engrossing story and the unique way in which Ms.Kerouac presented the sequence of events in her life as the events and not as the "sequence" were what made me love this book. My own copy of this book is in horrible repair, the cover taped together, pages still glued to one another in various sized clumps yet none of the clumps are actually attached to the cover itself any more. I've been looking for a new copy for years. Even the City Lights bookstore failed to turn up anything. While the old jacket cover was more endearing I'm looking forward to a new copy, so that I can once again share this book with friends. As is usually the case with the works of so many other women writers, this book has been unnoticed by most, yet is greatly enjoyed by the few of us lucky enough to stumble on to it.

Readable, unlike another Kerouac

Daughter Jan Kerouac's own written adventure can actually be read w/ pleasure and not w/ tedium. The adventure itself has some awfully surprising twists and turns, would make a great film, and ends most unexpectedly.

Jan Kerouac copes living without her father's love.

Jan Kerouac lives with the neglect and unreturned love of her father. The special relationship between Jan and her mother, Joan, can be seen throughout the book. Jan Kerouac's writing style is similar to her father, Jack Kerouac. However, the basis for her writing is not "a love for her America" but rather an innate desire to survive through a difficult childhood and misfortunate coming of age. The author's brutal honesty may suprise the reader. It will be difficult to read or look at Jack Kerouac the same after reading this book. This is a must read for any curious beat reader.