Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957-1958 - Softcover

Kerouac, Jack; Johnson, Joyce

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141001879 ISBN 13: 9780141001876

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2001

Synopsis

A “wonderful” (The New York Times Book Review) and unique collection of love letters between Joyce Johnson and Jack Kerouac

“A touching commentary not only on the Beat Generation but on what it’s like to be a young woman who loves a gifted, troubled guy with other things—besides love—on his mind.”—Elle
 
On a blind date in Greenwich Village set up by Allen Ginsberg, Joyce Johnson (then Joyce Glassman) met Jack Kerouac in January 1957, nine months before he became famous overnight with the publication of On the Road. She was an adventurous, independent-minded twenty-one-year-old; Kerouac was already running on empty at thirty-five.
 
Door Wide Open, containing the many letters the two of them wrote to each other, reveals a surprisingly tender side of Kerouac. It also shares a vivid and unusual perspective on what it meant to be young, Beat, and a woman in the Cold War fifties. Reflecting on those tumultuous years, Johnson seamlessly interweaves letters and commentary, bringing to life her love affair with one of American literature’s most fascinating and enigmatic figures.

About this title

About the Author

Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, the youngest of three children in a Franco-American family. He attended local Catholic and public schools and won a scholarship to Columbia University in New York City, where he first met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. His first novel, The Town and the City, appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, published in 1957 and memorializing his adventures with Neal Cassady, that epitomized to the world what became known as the “Beat generation” and made Kerouac one of the most best-known writers of his time. Publication of many other books followed, among them The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, and Big Sur. Kerouac considered all of his autobiographical fiction to be part of “one vast book,” The Duluoz Legend. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969, at the age of forty-seven.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Door Wide Open

A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957-1958By Jack Kerouac

Penguin Books

Copyright © 2001 Jack Kerouac
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0141001879

Chapter One

The night of our blind date in January 1957, Jack couldn'teven afford to buy me a cup of coffee?his last twenty hadvanished earlier that day when he'd bought a pack of cigarettes andreceived change for a five?so I treated him to a hot dog and bakedbeans at Howard Johnson's. Then he came home with me to myfirst apartment. As we headed uptown in the subway, we bothnoticed a catchy new advertising slogan, FLY NOW, PAY LATER,which I found quite relevant to the beginning of this love affair."You should call your novel that," Jack immediately suggested. (Heseemed to like the idea that I too was a writer, although he disapprovedof my admiration for Henry James.) We exchanged our firstkiss as soon as we were inside my apartment. "I don't like blondes,"Jack warned me, coming up for air, but I didn't take this as seriouslyas I should have.

    I was living at the time in two furnished rooms on the groundfloor of a brownstone on 1l3th Street between Broadway andAmsterdam. The following morning I successfully executed abreakfast of bacon and eggs on the rickety two-burner stove in acorner of the living room?cooking was one of my recentlyacquired skills. Jack had spent his first years in New York living allover this Columbia University neighborhood where I'd grown up,walking these streets discussing Proust and Nietzsche and the"New Consciousness" with Lucien Carr, Allen Ginsberg, andWilliam Burroughs while I was still in pigtails.

    Now that I was drawn into Jack's world, it became harder andharder to show up at the MCA Literary Agency each morning.Nights had become long and sleepless, full of hard-drinking peopleof his acquaintance. We often went downtown to visit LucienCarr, whom Jack considered his closest friend. They had met in1944, when Lucien was a freshman at Columbia; it was Lucien, infact, who had introduced him to Ginsberg and Burroughs. At nineteen,according to Jack, Lucien had looked like Rimbaud. But foryears he had hidden his beauty behind horn-rimmed glasses withclear lenses and a wispy mustache. In 1944 there had been an incidentthat would cast a shadow over the rest of his life. OnRiverside Drive, with his Boy Scout knife, Lucien had killed anolder man named David Kammerer, who had been obsessed withhim since his boyhood in Saint Louis and had followed him toColumbia. At Lucien's trial, prominent Columbia English professorshad testified as character witnesses, and he had been sent to areformatory for three years. In many ways, Lucien seemed more"settled" than Jack's other friends. He worked as a night editor forthe United Press and had an elegant, weary-looking wife namedCessa and two small boys, who were fascinated by Jack. But I wasoften aware of an unsettling edge to Lucien's conversation, eventhough he could be very charming. He had made Jack promisenever to write about him, or to mention the Kammerer case tomembers of the press.

    After seeing Lucien, Jack would never be ready to go backuptown. We would make exhausting tours of the Village bars, runninginto subterranean characters like Stanley Gould or BobDonlin, who seemed to be doing little with their lives exceptdrinking and smoking marijuana.

    It was always steadying to go to Elise's apartment in Yorkvilleand see Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, who seemed almostlike Jack's brothers. Allen, fresh from his triumphant readings ofHowl in San Francisco, was like a brilliant, gleeful general, deployinghis troops as he plotted a literary takeover: "Now Jack, tomorrowwe're taking the bus to Paterson and going to see WilliamCarlos Williams...." Gentle, blond Peter would make tea foreveryone and sweep the floor. They had a rather programmatic wayof removing their clothes, but you got used to it, and it wasn't toodifferent from being at the beach. Sometimes I worried about Elisebecame she'd been hopelessly in love with Allen for years, but shesaid she now loved Peter too. I knew I could never be as Beat as that.

    Late one night as Jack and I were coming home from theVillage, our subway car came to an abrupt jolting stop just as itbegan to pull into the Ninety-sixth Street Station. A man hadjumped onto the tracks. As soon as the doors of our subway caropened, we fled the station and walked home. Jack was ashen,unable to speak, as if the suicide were an omen, or as if he'd beenimplicated in the death of this stranger.

    During these first weeks of our relationship, Jack didn't seemespecially excited about the forthcoming publication of On theRoad in the fall and The Subterraneans the following spring. Itseemed as if he'd waited too long. On the Road, especially, hadbecome old to him; he'd moved on from there, written many otherbooks since 1951, all of them "published in Heaven," as Allen hadwritten in the dedication to Howl. Mostly he seemed to feel wearyrelief at the prospect of having a little money in his pocket. He toldme how he'd promised his father that someday he'd buy his mothera house?maybe he'd really be able to do that eventually. He alsohoped critics would admire his breakthrough into spontaneous,unfettered prose. Although there had been rumblings of unusualinterest in the Beat Generation writers ever since Ginsberg's historicreading of Howl at the Six Gallery in San Francisco a fewmonths before, Jack had no idea of the furor that would await himin September 1957.

    For the time being, work on my novel came to a halt. Why wasI writing about a silly college girl instead of something reallyimportant? The fact that I was getting a lot of encouragement fromHiram Haydn, the editor in chief at Random House (I'd begun thenovel in a workshop he taught at the New School), only seemedto increase my uncertainty. What would it mean if Haydn actuallybought it? Why should I have it so easy when Allen and Jack hadfound it so difficult to get published?

    I'd begun to feel I was living at an incredibly accelerated speed.One of my bosses at MCA said he'd noticed a great change in me.He was sort of a dead soul who had wrecked the literary talent ofhis youth by becoming king of the True Confessions writers; sometimeshe'd buy me drinks and morosely talk about the tragic mistakeshe'd made for cash.

    "Yes, something's happened to you, and I don't know what it is."

    "I'm Jack Kerouac's girlfriend." I knew he'd been following therecent articles about the underground writers of the so-called SanFrancisco Renaissance.

    He put his hand on my forehead. "Why, you're burning up," hesaid wistfully.

    My weeks with Jack passed all too quickly, as far as I was concerned.Ahead, like a cement wall, his departure date loomed.Except for one night when he went to see his brunette ex-girlfriendHelen Weaver and stayed too long, and I made him come homewith me?"It's her or me," I said, collecting him in a cab where hesat helplessly laughing at my audacity?we were getting along fine.But he had never planned to stick around. William Burroughs waswaiting for him in Tangiers, ready to show him the manuscript ofNaked Lunch, which Jack was going to type up for him, and Allenhad already paid for his passage on a freighter.

    On February 15, Jack sailed for Africa.

* * *

[aboard the S.S. Slovenial]
[early March 1957]

Dear Joyce?As I write this we're only 8 miles from theAfrican coast & will be in at dusk?It was a good thing youdidnt come back on the ship with me because it only went to biggas tank barges off Perth Amboy?Also because I went toLucien's alone, they were able to squeeze me in at his mother'slittle dinner, where I ate a pint of vanilla ice cream covered withcreme de menthe and been feeling good ever since?Our booksturned out fine?ten days at sea studying history & Kierkegaardhave opened new cracks in my mind?I'm saving Genji forSpain?Fresh sea air, sleep, walking on deck, sun, & now I'm myold self again (the healthy Jack you never saw)?Rarin to go inTangiers, the Blue Pearl of the Hesperides?the city of vice!whee!

    This is also by way of being a greeting to Allen, Peter, Ellyse[sic] and [Sheila]?All during the trip I ate alone at a hugewhite tablecloth with one mysterious Yugoslavian woman MataHari?We had a dangerous storm 500 miles out & almostfoundered.... in all my years as seaman I never saw my ship buryits nose in mountain waves & plunge up into other valleys like arowboat.... it was awful, we had to flee South & lose a day?

    During this ordeal, I heard the words:?

EVERYTHING IS GOD, NOTHING EVER HAPPENED EXCEPT GOD?and I believed & still do.

    Kierkegaard & the storm together made me see this luminouspeaceful truth?You must read FEAR AND TREMBLING (nevermind SICKNESS UNTO DEATH, which is an abstract discussionof despair)?F&T is about Abraham & Isaac & made me cry?

    At moments I was sad remembering your tears?we'll meetagain?

* * *

    Tangiers?wow! Immediately Bill Burroughs took me to theCasbah where the veiled women pass?I was so high I thoughtI'd seen it all before?He lives on a hill overlooking the baywhere even now I can see the S.S. Slovenia docked?We smokemarijuana right in the cafes, in public, it's legal?a strange wildArab town?old as time?

    Very excited I am?I'll get me a room of my own & write?brightsunshine this morning, cries of Arab peddlers, & tonightagain the mysterious Casbah & that whanging music?Writesoon & let me hear the latest. Love, Jack XXX

X
For
TiGris

Monday, March 11, 1957

Dear Jack,

    It was lovely to get your letter. You sound fine?absolutelygolden. I'm glad.

    I've had a frantic time of it this month?looking for a job. Ifinally have one, start Thursday. But guess where it is??Farrar,Straus & Cudahy! I'll be working for [John] Farrar, who is asweet, neurotic, tweedy old man, who dates back from theMaxwell Perkins days in publishing. I met him on AshWednesday, and he had an ash on his forehead. He said to me,"Don't be alarmed, Miss Glassman. It's only Anglican ash." Idon't know whether this augurs good or ill, but anyway I'mdelighted to be through with MCA. It's funny, but I think if Ihadn't known you, I wouldn't have been ready to quit MCA yet.You and the great beautiful freedom you have reminded me ofmyself and what I really wanted?all of this had become terriblymixed up with snobbish, ridiculous, theatrical ideas of somevague kind of glittering power?but I don't want to be a literaryagent, I'm too young, and besides I really do want to be a writer,and I shouldn't get all involved with anything else. I know thatgetting another job in publishing doesn't sound to you like a veryradical step, but the point is that this is just a nice, quiet job thatwon't lead anywhere?and I don't care! Now I can look at a job assomething that pays the rent, keeps me alive?nothing more, andI can get up and walk out of it if I want to! For me this is somehowan enormous revelation.

    I've thought a lot about your letter?about your finding Godin the middle of the storm. I can't really comprehend that?Iwant you to know that about me. I scramble from day to day,hour to hour, and I seldom stop to ask questions, because when Ido, I find everything in the world senseless, without reason, andit terrifies me. I am not defending myself; I am simply telling youthis. I look at your way with wonder?but there is nothing I cansay to you about it, except that. And in the meanwhile, I movetwo miles downtown to a new job, not too different from the oldone, and you move across the ocean to another continent!

    Shall I tell you some news? Allen and Peter sailed Saturdayafter being delayed for weeks because of the tugboat strike. Eliseand [Sheila] are now taking over the negotiations about Nickyand Julius [Orlovsky]?all of which is awfully complicated anddoesn't look too hopeful?Nicky is being uncooperative, sayingthat no one can prove him sane because he is sane, etc., whichdoesn't help much. I've met Lafcadio [Orlovsky], who's wonderful,interested and curious about everything: the first question heasked me was "Were you living with Jack?"; the first question heasked Elise was "When are you getting married?" ?all this, whilelooking very stern and self-contained. The two Helen's are nolonger talking to each other?Helen W. moved out and HelenE. asked me to live with her. I refused?I really do like beingalone, except for having you around, which was fine. Elise won'tmove in with me, after all. The 1st issue of the Evergreen Reviewcame today, and I guess the second will be along soon. I can'tthink of any other news. I will try to get to a Post Office thisweek and send you the two articles?I'm terribly bad about mailingthings. It was funny to read about you: there you were allprinted up, called a "frantic Buddha" and compared to Celine, etal., and I remembered you leaning on a garbage can, eating pizzaand saw your red shirt lying on the rocking chair, still smelling ofyou even though you were thousands of miles away.

    Well, tell me all about the city of vice.

Love,
Joyce

* * *

It did seem a truly wild coincidence to land a job at Farrar, Straus& Cudahy. Two people there had important connections to Jack.The editor in chief was Robert Giroux, who had published Jack's firstnovel, The Town and the City, at Harcourt, Brace, wining him anddining him for a number of years but reacting with dismay when Jackcame to his office and triumphantly unfurled the newly typed scrollof On the Road. In a blind rage, Jack had rushed out of Giroux'soffice, taking the scroll with him. When Jack later gave his editor achance to read a retyped manuscript, Giroux had compared it toDostoievsky, but said he was positive the company would reject itanyway on the grounds that it was too unusual and controversial.Jack was still quite bitter about this outcome.

    Helen Weaver, whom Jack was still a little in love with, I suspected,worked in the production department of my new employer.Helen seemed to be my nemesis (or maybe I was hers), but Icouldn't help liking her and we gradually became office friends,avoiding the subject of Jack.

    Allen and Peter had set sail for Tangiers in early March. Theydelegated to Elise and her roommate Sheila, who had becomePeter's girlfriend during their visit to New York, the responsibilityof looking out for Peter's brothers. Nicky and Julius Orlovsky wereboth in mental institutions; Elise and Sheila were supposed to helpNicky get released?how, they didn't quite know. Elise was especiallyconcerned about sixteen-year-old Lafcadio, who had beenliving with Allen and Peter in San Francisco and was now back inNorthport, Long Island, with his mother in dangerously isolatedcircumstances.

* * *

[Tangiers]

    MARCH [?] 19.... Dear Joyce: Only just got your letter dueto slow sloppy mailsystem at the American Legation ... a monthlate.... From now on write to me at this hotel address ... & Iwill get your letters in 4 or 5 days at most ... very charming tohear from you, very pleased.... Allen is arriving here in a fewdays and we will row out in a boat to meet his ship ... we rowoften, in the bay ... I take long walks to see the ancient fishermenpulling nets with a slow dance ... there are many dull expatriatecharacters here I try to avoid mostly ... not too many goodvibrations in Tangier and the Arabs very quiet send out no vibrationsat all so I spend most of my time musing in my room ...somehow can't write here but anyway that can wait ... what I'mactually doing is thinking nostalgic thoughts of Frisco ... not toointerested in this oldworld scene, as tho I'd seen it beforeplenty ... anyway in early April I'm off by myself to Paris, theothers can join me later, to get cheap garret ... then London,Dublin, Brittany ... then I try to get job on freighter, work myway back this summer ... I just dont seem interested, got toomuch to do in America, shouldna come at all of course ... so I'lllikely be seeing you in NY in July maybe ... look forward to seeingyou, lonely here, dont like whores anyway and no girls speakEnglish ... mostly fags abound in this sinister international hiveof queens ... have had everything in the books, smoked opium,ate hasheesh, don't want any of it, just musing in my room, lightsout, face sea, moon, liquid lights of anchored ships in bay, goodenuf ... the blink of lonely headland lighthouse.... Grove Pressreally pulled a fast one on me and cut the novel subterraneans by60 per cent of all things and ruined swing of prose so I wrote andcalled it off ... I will not stand for any more of this castration ofmy careful large work by liverish pale fag editors ... you know myfirst novel Town and City in original ms. form was 1100 pagesand ranked with five of the greatest books ever writ in America(this I believe) but after Harcourt Brace cut it over 50 percent tosave paper, and ruined rhythm of sentences, it was like 2 or 3thousand any-other novels a lil better than average ... so thetime has come to put my foot down on this editorial activity ... nosuch action goes on in France, where young writers are publishedin toto ... only the french have nothing to say because theOld World is weary.... You said you would airmail Nation andVillage Voice articles, or did you, or is Allen bringing themanyway? ... O well who cares, they say this and that about a writerbut it doesn't prevent them from trying to castrate too.... Oh, Ireckon by now you got my first letter to you? about the trip onthe boat and the big storm and Yugoslavian woman I ate withand the books I read? curious to know, when you answer, let meknow if you got that okay.... Your story about Five Spot amusingand the story about Tigris eating dandelions, what a cat(daffodils) .... I'm curious to visit Brittany and find out what myfather changed the name Keroach for, because I see there was aBreton Admiral called Ronarc'h so that it would be Keroac'h if hewas correct.... On sunny mornings I sit crosslegged on my patioand read diamond sutra facing the Catholic priests of nearbychurch who stand in gangs reciting their rosaries facing the seabut I face the Heliolithic sun, hor.... Sometimes I spend allnight comparing my newfound utter listless dispiritedness and no-careof where I am, what I do, to enthusiasm of old Americanwriters like John Muir, Timrod, Twain, etc., the vigorous activitiesof other men abashing me, as tho I had never written a linemyself.... But since found out, we were all poisoned by thehasheesh, which has arsenic in it, because of spray, so thatexplains my so-far dispirited visit in Tangier and feeling of novibrations.... I drink most delicious wine in the world, whichcosts 28 cents a quart, Malaga, sweet molassey wine from Malagaacross these straits in Espagna.... Vision one afternoon: "Allthings that move are God and all things that dont move areGod," and at the reutterance of this ancient secret all thingsthat moved and made noise seemed to suddenly rejoice andall things that didnt move seem pleased! ... Eat in marvelousFrench restaurant serving everything great, for one dollar, fourcourses, amazing menu, truffle casserole in cheese, etc., daintypastries, impossible hors d'oeuvres, a pretty white cat sits on mylap as I eat, the proprietor insists I finish all my potatoes....

Write soon, honey Love
Jack

* * *

I remember being taken aback by Jack's matter-of-fact line, "dontlike whores anyway and no girls speak English." It was as if he'dforgotten for a moment whom he was writing to; our friendship wascertainly quite different from the ones he had with Lucien or Allen.But I decided not to probe into the question of whether or not Jackwas seeing other women?a policy I would later try to stick to withmuch greater difficulty. I had to keep reminding myself that Icouldn't really wait for Jack to come back to me, since who knew ifhe would?

    All at once I'd begun to meet many new people?the paintersand poets who congregated at a nondescript-looking bar on UniversityPlace called the Cedar Tavern not far from the UnionSquare offices of Farrar, Straus & Cudahy. For years the Cedar hadbeen the haunt of Jackson Pollock, who had died in a car accidentin 1956, and other abstract expressionist painters. I began walkingdown there each day on my lunch hour and was soon introducedto Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning and a younger group ofartists and writers, including Fielding (Fee) Dawson, Basil King,John Chamberlain, and Joel Oppenheimer, who had all studied atBlack Mountain.

    Black Mountain was a small arts college in North Carolina,where the educational experience had evidently been so heightened,incestuous, and intense that nobody who'd gone there couldever stop talking about it. When the institution went spectacularlybankrupt in 1956, a small group of diehards had stayed on, keepingwarm by burning chairs in fireplaces, eating steaks stolen from thelocal supermarket. Finally the diehards had given up?half of themdriving west toward the San Francisco Renaissance in NorthBeach, half of them heading north for downtown Manhattan andthe Cedar. The final issue of the Black Mountain Review, due to bepublished early in 1958, would feature a contribution from Jack:"The Essentials of Spontaneous Prose." There was somethingabout Jack's theories about bop prosody that reminded me of thenew action paintings I was seeing, where the colors seemed dancedupon the canvas in vibrant strokes with surprising explosions andlittle showers of paint as delicate as rain.

    Many of my new acquaintances didn't live in apartments likemost New Yorkers. Instead they inhabited old commercial loftsillegally, hiding their mattresses in ingenious ways in case a buildinginspector came to check the premises. On Friday nights,everyone turned up at openings at the cooperative storefront gallerieson Tenth Street, where works by unknown artists excludedfrom the snooty galleries uptown were being exhibited in exuberantgroup shows. The next stop would often be the Five Spot, thenew Bowery jazz joint whose walls were covered with flyers fromthe neighborhood galleries. I began going there with Elise. We'dbuy our 25-cent beers and listen to John Coltrane. We were therethe unforgettable night Billie Holliday suddenly stood up at hertable and sang as Mal Waldron played the piano. (She had recentlybeen deprived of her cabaret card by the police.) I'd always longedto go to Paris?the destination of the heroine in the novel I waswriting?but now there was something in the air that made NewYork seem the most exciting place in the world.

* * *

[Tangiers]
[late March]

Dear Joycey?

    Am now leaving for Paris & Allen & Peter will take over mylovely patio room?"April in Paris" is all I keep singing (ATLAST)?Your vision of the Casbah, with palm trees andLegionnaires riding through, must come from an old RonaldColman movie!?it's really called the Medina (The Casbah is thewailed fort, cobblestones with one antique cannon), the Medinais full of narrow damp alleys, robed Arabs, vegetable stands,smoke of frying fish & Allen Ginsberg wandering around lookingfor asparagus?(romantic enough)?When I said "God" in myvision in the sea I didn't mean a bearded man in Heaven, Imeant THAT WHICH PASSES THROUGH ALL ("Shouldanyone looking at an image or likeness of that which passesthrough all claim to know that which passes through all andshould offer worship and prayer thereto, you should consider sucha person an idolater who does not know truly that which passesthrough all." DIAMOND VOW OF WISDOM)?Then "Do notthink the opposite either that when that which passes through allpasses through knowing perfectly through all, it is not by meansof its ability to pass through various kinds of excellent form....[you] should neither grasp after such verdicts of the appearance ofthings nor reject them."

    ?Which, if you said it to the college crowd, would passthrough one ear and out the other, as is proper and fitting?Whatare you doing at Farrar, Straus? Met Giroux yet? You mighttell Giroux for me that Andre Deutsch, a new English house, hasjust bought On the Road & tell Bob that I'll go to London & lookup Frank Morley?(Christopher's brother)?Is Helen Weaverstill at F. Straus??What a blue sea out there today, the ceruleanblue I always dreamed for the Mediterranean?Today I'm makinga reservation on the packet to Marseilles, then hitchhike toParis?Who is going to be your publisher for your novel??YesterdayI hiked 10 miles alone & climbed mountain, & sat onhillsides watching Berber villages?At night, flutes over therooftops?Be seeing you in New York before 4th of July

Love, Jack

April 14, 1957

Dear Jack,

    How is April in Paris?I guess you're there by now?I saw itin the newsreel last night: fireworks, dancing on the Seine, processionsand crowds. Is it really like that? You were right?I guessmy vision of the Casbah was more a vision of Hollywood thananything else.

    April is cold here, with snow dropping shamelessly on the forsythiasin Central Park, which isn't fair. But Columbia is verygreen and sleepy already.

    What I am at Farrar, Straus is an "editorial secretary." I type,read manuscripts, etc. Quite peaceful. My boss is Mr. Farrar, anold man left over from the 20's (I read some poetry written in hisheyday in '24?"I'll filch the golden pollen / From half a millionbees, / And I'll dust it on some quiet bloom / Before she evensees." Etc., etc.?awful!) But he's a sweet old guy, suspects me ofbeing "somewhat of a rebel"?he invited me to go to the P.E.N.Club tomorrow and asked me would I mind not wearing slacks?whichis what he thinks all female rebels wear?so, dressed ascomme il faut as possible, I shall go there and dig what happens toyou when you become an old established writer. Mr. Giroux withhis large, heavy white head is very very impressive. So far wehave just mumbled good morning at each other and once he correctedmy punctuation. Jack, he makes me feel terribly shy forsome reason. Helen Weaver is still at FSC?we've become officefriends, which is nice. The funny thing is that she's going outwith Donald Cook now (remember, you met him in the WestEnd and said he had an urchin's face) and I had gone aroundwith him for two years. Incest again! The good thing about FSCis that for two hours each afternoon, I have nothing to do, and soI've appropriated that time to work on the book. I'm writingfaster now, revising less, and there is much more dialogue, andI'm finally getting used to the sound of my own voice and findingout that I have one. Hiram Haydn is still interested and my agentis going to tackle him for an option when the workshop is over. IfI don't get one, she wants me to try for a Houghton MifflinLiterary Fellowship.

    How lovely about the English edition! Has anything morehappened with Grove Press?or is that deal completely finished?Are you writing A DHARMA BUM IN EUROPE now?

    I went to hear Miles Davis, who is playing at the CafeBohemia in the Village. He's really fine?beautiful crazy linesfloating on top of each other. He stood up very straight andlooked stern. The place was packed, but silent as a cathedral?everybodyat the bar looked sad and a little apprehensive andthere was a weeping girl with a cat's face wandering back andforth looking for jazz musicians. Then?all of a sudden, a carsmacked up across the street between a house and a lamppost.The people in the front seat were trapped but giggling. A man atthe bar cried "Crazy? threw up his arms and ran out into thestreet, followed by everybody except Miles Davis who kept playing.He finished and said quietly, "Thank you for the applause,"and walked off. It was like a dream. I felt a little sick and went allthe way uptown to Columbia and found the cat sleeping with hiseyes open and rolled back into his head. I read some Jane Austenand went to bed and had a dream about being put into a prisonfor wayward girls and not being able to get out ever because itwas supposed to be good for me.

    Aside from the dream, I find that I've been pretty calm andhappy for around four consecutive months now, which is sort of arecord for me. Don't know why and won't ask too many questions.I'm not a questioner and not a believer either?that's all Imeant when I wrote you about your vision of God (not a beardedman in heaven!). You are both a believer and a seeker, and to meit is the ability to seek or believe that is important, not what issought or believed in. Is this any clearer? I've read and rereadwhat you quoted from the Diamond Vow of Wisdom many timesand the meaning keeps expanding and expanding.

    Hope Paris is as beautiful as the songs promise and as wild asHenry Miller and that you are happy.

    Are you really coming back in July? It would be great to seeyou.

Love,
Joyce

P.S. Am sending you the article Louise Bogan wrote on Friscowriters.

Would have written sooner, but wanted to wait till you got toParis. Superstitious about the mails & American legations, etc.Very silly!

4/15 Since writing this I've gone [to PEN] & discovered it's muchbetter to remain a young unestablished writer, if you're going toend up that stuffy!

Continues...

Excerpted from Door Wide Openby Jack Kerouac Copyright © 2001 by Jack Kerouac. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0141001879
• ISBN 13: 9780141001876
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 182