Dorfner, John J. (Ginsberg, Allen; Kerouac, Jack)

Kerouac: Visions of Lowell

Raleigh, NC: Cooper Street Publications, 1993. First Edition. Softcover. “The name KEROUAC first caught my eye while I was working for a book distributor in Portland, Oregon in 1974. A friend of mine came running into my office with a copy of “Kerouac” by Ann Charters. After reading the biography “Kerouac” I read “On the Road,” then maybe “The Dharma Bums,” then “Dr. Sax.” After reading these three novels I was hooked into the Legend of Jack Kerouac…the Legend of Jack Duluoz…even before I had any knowledge of the legend as Kerouac intended it to be….In the Spring of 1976 I returned to New York…and in the summer made my first journey to Lowell. To anyone going there to search out Kerouac’s youth…it’s a very nostalgic experience…at least it was in the mid-1970s and early 1980s when I’d drive up to work on my book and take roll after roll of film, walking the streets, observing the neighborhoods. It’s very different today in Lowell. There was no Jack Kerouac commemorative in the early 1970s, no display of his rucksack in the Boott Mill Museum…but in the snow-filled grave yard of Edson Cemetery, I’d find a full bottle of wine with 4 empty glasses, flowers, and various notes that people would leave…thanking Jack for whatever they had to thank him for. “Kerouac: Visions of Lowell” concerns Jack’s early years…those years in Lowell before “On the Road.” Jack’s life on Lupine with Gerard, walking down Merrimack Street with Nin, living in Pawtucketville with his mother and sister in old Textile Lunch. Kerouac died in the fall of 1969. To the literary world he left something new and exciting, something he called “Spontaneous Prose.” Kerouac was born in Centralville at the beginning of the roaring ‘20s and lived as a young boy in Lowell…he lived the life he described years later in “Visions of Gerard,” the novel of his long-lost brother…“Dr. Sax,” his Pawtucketville boyhood among the Tenements and Shadows. Kerouac may have died in St. Petersburg, Florida in October 1969 but before he joined Gerard in Heaven, he never gave up trying to describe to his readers what a great childhood he had…living in Lowell, Massachusetts…along the Merrimack River.” John J. Dorfner’s “Kerouac: Visions of Lowell” is a collection of photographs taken by the author during the aforementioned pilgrimage to Lowell, Massachusetts. Along with the images is text of the author’s observations, commentary, references to the sites in Kerouac’s life and work. Includes a short foreword by Allen Ginsberg. First Printing, though not noted on copyright page; a softcover original. [ISBN: 0-9636046-7-8]. Book in very fine condition with only slightest shelf-wear to fine-edges; tiniest bump to bottom right-hand corner of front cover; slight rubbing on bottom left-hand corner of back cover. Very Fine. [Item #4662]

Price: $35.00