Cassady, Carolyn

Heart Beat: My Life with Jack & Neal

ISBN: 0916870030
Berkeley, CA: Creative Arts Book Company, 1976. First Trade Edition. Softcover. "An intimate portrait of life off the road with Jack Kerouac & Neal Cassady. What times were really like for the heroes of the Beat Generation in early fifties San Francisco, including letters from Kerouac, Cassady and Allen Ginsberg." (front cover) the short memoir by Carolyn Cassady (1923-2013), wife of Neal & intimate member-enabler of the founding Beat Generation. Divided into two parts, "Spring 1952" & "Fall-Winter 1952-3," the book zeroes in on these two brief but crucial periods in the lives of the Cassadys, Kerouac, Ginsberg et al. Transcripts of original letters are combined with Carolyn's reminiscences & commentaries. With a portfolio of photographs depicting the principals, as well as a comic strip drawn by Kerouac at the Cassadys' home for their children, all contemporary with this period or shortly before & after. The (loose) basis for the 1980 film of the same title starring Nick Nolte as neal, Sissy Spacek as Carolyn & John Heard as Kerouac- in our opinion a typically lame, miscast & inaccurate production albeit with a wonderful contemporary soundtrack. Fourteen years after this memoir, Carolyn published a longer, deeper & more sweeping autobiography (Off The Road, 1990). Nevertheless, this is one of the earliest Beat-related memoirs that greatly contributed to a revived, newly historical interest in the Beats. It was published the same year as John Tytell's seminal triple portrait of Ginsberg, Kerouac & William S. Burroughs- Naked Angels. Trade-format softcover, issued concurrently with a limited signed hardcover edition. An important & collectible Beat milestone in this original form. In fine condition with mild rubbing, scratching to front, back covers & spine; very light wear & a few tiny bumps at edges & corners of same; series of light vertical creases across spine; very mild rubbing & spotting to edges of text block. At left edge-margin of front cover & spine; the bright red coloring fades to pink & becomes off-white, while retaining the glossy surface. Comparing this to the appearance of other copies whose images we have seen where the red background is uniform throughout, we conclude that the appearance of this copy is the result of a production flaw as issued, rather than sunning. Interior very fine with only miniscule bumps at corners of some page leaves. Fine with Production Flaw. [Item #3374]

Price: $40.00