Two years ago today, Carolyn Cassady died. As I pointed out at the time (click here), we don't have too many of Jack Kerouac's intimates left, let alone those who knew him. But, she was a force in her own right, and the world might well be remembering her without having had a Kerouac connection if her life had unfolded along a different path.
To wit, the Boston Herald said of her 1990 memoir, Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg: "Bursts with emotions of joy and enlightenment, anger and restlessness, delight and desolation." If you're interested in Kerouac -- and I assume you are given that you are reading this blog -- Off the Road is must-reading. Her first meeting with Jack is described starting on p. 28 in the above version (Penguin 1991). If you're not a Kerouac fan, it's still a great memoir about a seminal time in American history.
Click here for a video interview of Carolyn not long before her death at age 90. I hope I'm nearly that cogent in my waning years.
RIP, Carolyn.
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