'Memory Baby' by Gerald Nicosia
When does an old book turn into a new book?
It’s a question I’m addressing when reading through Gerald Nicosia’s Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac, a book I (very favorably) reviewed back in 1983, when it was first published by Grove Press. I wrote at the time that it was the definitive biography of Kerouac, and I believe it today. Allen Ginsberg once remarked that the 1983 version was so realistic that it smelled like Kerouac, which invites the following question: How is the book better today? It was massive to begin with. Do we need more?
In this case, the answer is a resounding, yes. Although the original was extensively detailed and notated and was bolstered by Nicosia’s critical commentary of Kerouac’s books, the biographer was hindered by his inability to present illustrative detail. He was not granted permission to quote from Kerouac’s correspondence or journals—an issue dating back to Ann Charters’ Kerouac, the first biography of the influential writer. Such citation would have added significant texture to the books. New information, unavailable to Nicosia when he was working on his biography, suddenly became available years after publication.
As our preeminent Kerouac scholar, Nicosia is well positioned to sniff out the best of Kerouac’s previously unavailable writings. I remember being moved by the depth added to The Town and the City and On the Road when I read Windblown World, Kerouac’s journals connected to these books expertly edited by Douglas Brinkley, and by the way Desolation Peak, just published by Rare Bird Books, colored Desolation Angels. So it is with the new Memory Babe. Nicosia used his many interviews of, and correspondence with, those who knew Kerouac to broaden his original narrative; now he has new information and Kerouac’s own words to extend it.
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Seeing the book back into print was no easy task. Nicosia found enough rejection, last-minute cancellations, and other publishing difficulties to fill another book. Fortunately, he persevered, not unlike the subject of this book. As an added bonus, there are many photos worth seeing; the earlier edition had only a few.
But this is the unpredictable, often shallow world of publication; perseverance can make all the difference, and like a motion picture director’s cut, this book is again new.
