Use My Name: Jack Kerouac’s Forgotten Familes

With this fascinating new book, Jim Jones debunks many of the myths surrounding the life and times of Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road. Jones concentrates on those whose lives were most affected by Kerouac: daughter Jan Kerouac, wives Edie Parker, Joan Haverty, and Stella Sampac, as well as nephew Paul Blake Jr. Use My Name: Jack Kerouac's Forgotten Families takes its title from advice given to Jan during her second and final meeting with Jack, who encouraged her to profit from the surname she shared with the famous author of On the Road. Sadly, not one of these individuals so closely tied to Kerouac seems to have benefited from the connection, as Jones discovers in his in-depth interview with Jan. She discusses at length her fifteen months as a prostitute, her own divorces, her hospitalization, and her life as an author, including a wild European book tour for Baby Driver.

Although Kerouac is one of the most “biographied” American writers of our time, Jones offers a new perspective on the “King of the Beats” and his generation, one from which formerly marginalized figures in the Kerouac story — particularly women — become strong, central characters. He also exposes the cut-throat wheeling and dealing that has plagued the Kerouac estate, and which continues today as the various players do battle over the legacy of one of the counterculture's biggest idols.