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Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir
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Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir Paperback - 1999

by Joyce Johnson; Introduction by Anne Douglas


Summary

Jack Kerouac. Allen Ginsberg. William S. Burroughs. LeRoi Jones. Theirs are the names primarily associated with the Beat Generation. But what about Joyce Johnson (nee Glassman), Edie Parker, Elise Cowen, Diane Di Prima, and dozens of others? These female friends and lovers of the famous iconoclasts are now beginning to be recognized for their own roles in forging the Beat movement and for their daring attempts to live as freely as did the men in their circle a decade before Women's Liberation. Twenty-one-year-old Joyce Johnson, an aspiring novelist and a secretary at a New York literary agency, fell in love with Jack Kerouac on a blind date arranged by Allen Ginsberg nine months before the publication of On the Road made Kerouac an instant celebrity. While Kerouac traveled to Tangiers, San Francisco, and Mexico City, Johnson roamed the streets of the East Village, where she found herself in the midst of the cultural revolution the Beats had created. Minor Characters portrays the turbulent years of her relationship with Kerouac with extraordinary wit and love and a cool, critical eye, introducing the reader to a lesser known but purely original American voice: her own.

From the publisher

Joyce Johnson is the author of three novels, including The Night Café. Her other books include Minor Characters, which was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957–1958.

Details

  • Title Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir
  • Author Joyce Johnson; Introduction by Anne Douglas
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Pages 304
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Books, U.S.A.
  • Date 1999-07-01
  • Features Bibliography
  • ISBN 9780140283570 / 0140283579
  • Weight 0.46 lbs (0.21 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.74 x 5.01 x 0.56 in (19.66 x 12.73 x 1.42 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1950's
    • Chronological Period: 1950-1999
    • Cultural Region: Mid-Atlantic
    • Cultural Region: Northeast U.S.
    • Demographic Orientation: Urban
    • Geographic Orientation: New York
    • Sex & Gender: Feminine
  • Library of Congress subjects Authors, American - 20th century, Beat generation
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 99462665
  • Dewey Decimal Code B

Media reviews

Citations

  • New York Times, 09/19/1999, Page 32

About the author

Joyce Johnson's eight books include the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award winner Minor Characters, the recent memoir Missing Men, the novel In the Night Cafe, and Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters 1957-1958 (with Jack Kerouac). She has written for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and lives in New York City.
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Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir
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Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir

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Minor Characters : A Beat Memoir

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Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir

Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir

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Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir

Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir

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Minor Characters : A Beat Memoir
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Minor Characters : A Beat Memoir
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Minor Characters : A Beat Memoir

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Minor Characters : A Beat Memoir
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Minor Characters : A Beat Memoir

by Johnson, Joyce

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Minor Characters : A Beat Memoir

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