Named one of the 50 best memoirs of the past 50 years by The New York Times
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
“Among the great American literary memoirs of the past century . . . a riveting portrait of an era . . . Johnson captures this period with deep clarity and moving insight.” – Dwight Garner, The New York Times
In 1954, Joyce Johnson’s Barnard professor told his class that most women could never have the kinds of experiences that would be worth writing about. Attitudes like that were not at all unusual at a time when “good” women didn’t leave home or have sex before they married; even those who broke the rules could merely expect to be minor characters in the dramas played by men. But secret rebels, like Joyce and her classmate Elise Cowen, refused to accept things as they were.
As a teenager, Johnson stole down to Greenwich Village to sing folksongs in Washington Square. She was 21 and had started her first novel when Allen Ginsberg introduced her to Jack Kerouac; nine months later she was with Kerouac when the publication of On the Road made him famous overnight. Joyce had longed to go on the road with him; instead she got a front seat at a cultural revolution under attack from all sides; made new friends like Hettie and LeRoi Jones, and found herself fighting to keep the shy, charismatic, tormented Kerouac from destroying himself. It was a woman’s adventure and a fast education in life. What Johnson and other Beat Generation women would discover were the risks, the heartache and the heady excitement of trying to live as freely as the rebels they loved.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
National Book Critics Circle Award-winner, Minor Characters has deservedly become known among the cognoscenti as a classic about the 1950s, a vivid and compelling memoir of one woman's coming of age amidst the angels and poets of the Beat Generation. The friend and lover of Jack Kerouac during the two years surrounding the publication of On The Road --the book that made him suddenly and forever famous--Johnson describes with penetrating insight the circle of rebellious visionaries of which she became a part: Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, LeRoi Jones, Gregory Corso. But more than just chronicling the drama of her life with a diffident and often drunken Kerouac, Johnson describes the roles that she and the other women in her circle played as companions and acolytes to their male muses, women who set aside their own needs and ambitions, for a time, even as they searched to find their own voices and shape their own lives. As Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in The New York Times, Johnson "has brought to life what history may ultimately judge to have been minor characters, but who were to her own generation major enough to shape its consciousness." Anchor Books is proud to be reissuing Minor Characters with a new introduction by the author that helps to place the Beat Generation in the context of the 1990s.
"Realistic rather than flamboyant, Johnson succeeds in portraying the Beats not as oddities or celebrities but as individuals. In wry retrospect, she recognizes the folly of young women rebelling against their well-meaning parents only to become subservient to indifferent men."--The New Yorker
"Johnson writes of Dostoevskian evenings, of Kerouac's disastrous confrontation with fame...of the major Beat voices and the minor characters, their women. It's a terrific book, rich and beautifully written, full of vivid portraits and evocations."--San Francisco Chronicle
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.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Shipping:
US$ 3.25
From Canada to U.S.A.
Seller: Decluttr, Kennesaw, GA, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. 1726681536. 9/18/2024 5:45:36 PM. Seller Inventory # U9780140283570
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Gulf Coast Books, Memphis, TN, U.S.A.
paperback. Condition: Good. Seller Inventory # 0140283579-3-32454234
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00074763548
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Item in good condition and has highlighting/writing on text. Used texts may not contain supplemental items such as CDs, info-trac etc. Seller Inventory # 00074824079
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # 4185243-6
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Better World Books: West, Reno, NV, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 5319478-6
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 8266354-6
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 5319478-6
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: Goodwill Books, Hillsboro, OR, U.S.A.
Condition: Acceptable. Fairly worn, but readable and intact. If applicable: Dust jacket, disc or access code may not be included. Seller Inventory # 3IIT03003NYL_ns
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Books Unplugged, Amherst, NY, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Buy with confidence! Book is in good condition with minor wear to the pages, binding, and minor marks within 0.45. Seller Inventory # bk0140283579xvz189zvxgdd
Quantity: 1 available