Maggie Cassidy

published	August 1st 1993 by Penguin (Non-Classics)
binding	Paperback
isbn	0140179062 (isbn13: 9780140179064)
pages	208
date added	02-01-07 edit book

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Andrew rated it:

05/01/08

Read in May, 2008

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It's been a long time since I read a book by Jack Kerouac. When I was younger and first read "On The Road", "Dharma Bums", "The Subterraneans", "Visions Of Cody", and the several others of his that I've read, I loved his stuff. But as I've gotten older, and the distance between me and the last time I read any Kerouac has grown, the criticism that the guy comes in for in certain circles has gotten to me a bit, and I've found myself wondering at times whethe...more It's been a long time since I read a book by Jack Kerouac. When I was younger and first read "On The Road", "Dharma Bums", "The Subterraneans", "Visions Of Cody", and the several others of his that I've read, I loved his stuff. But as I've gotten older, and the distance between me and the last time I read any Kerouac has grown, the criticism that the guy comes in for in certain circles has gotten to me a bit, and I've found myself wondering at times whether or not he's as awesome as I remember. Well, I've got a few Kerouac books that I've picked up over the years that I still haven't read yet, this being one of them, and for whatever reason, a couple days ago when I hit up the bookshelf in my room for something new to read, my eyes lit upon "Maggie Cassidy". This book tells the story of Kerouac's first serious relationship, which happened when he was in high school, and I remembered liking the first chapter when I picked it up several years ago and read through it in a bookstore. I thought I'd probably enjoy it if I picked it up again now, since it isn't one of the weirder, less linear Kerouac books--like "Visions Of Cody", which I struggled a bit with, or "Desolation Angels", which I've owned for years and still haven't made it through. The opening few chapters are a pretty straightforward story about Jack Duluoz, Kerouac's literary stand-in, going to a New Year's Eve dance with his friends. It's told in third person, and has that lyrical mix of straightforward description and stream-of-consciousness rambling that is so intrinsic to everything I've read by Kerouac--it sucked me right in. I knew I'd enjoy the book from there. Of course, it soon changed; once the scene described in the opening chapters of Duluoz/Kerouac stumbling and howling down the road to the dance with his friends had ended, the book switched to first person and became a heartfelt narrative about young love as told by a much older man looking back. There's a wistful tone that carries throughout the book, often taking the form of stream-of-consciousness digressions into the then-unknown future of the characters, in which Kerouac laments the sad times that would come to befall them all. The transition between chapters 4 and 5 is particularly poignant, marking as it does the transition between third-person omniscient narrative and first person. At this point, and at many other times in the book's narrative--especially during the stream-of-consciousness ramblings, seemingly inspired by memories of a happy time now lost--I was forcefully reminded of what I always loved, what I still love about Kerouac: the way he does such a great job of making you relate to the way he feels, of showing you the depths of the love and feeling in his heart, of putting you in there with him and reminding you of the things in your own life that relate to the things he's feeling as he writes. Kerouac was a French-Canadian drunk and an over-emotional drifter who never amounted to much on any material scale, who bounced around and crashed on couches even as he was gaining serious literary fame, who sponged off his mom all his life, and who died before he hit 50 because he just couldn't quit drinking. But boy, he had so much emotion overflowing within him, and he did such an uncannily great job of putting it down on paper, I for one can't hold an ounce of it against him. I just wish he coulda lived 30 more years to write a whole bunch more books and maybe be around making TV appearances when I was growing up so I could see him instead of always having to hear his voice on old recordings, talking over the end of a Jawbreaker song or tracks he recorded with Zoot Sims in the 50s. Reading "Maggie Cassidy" made me sorry that he isn't some old man sitting on a porch in Massachusetts right now. I'd love to have an 8 hour conversation with Jack Kerouac right now.

But OK, that's all a shame but let's talk about the book a bit. Its only real weak point, so far as I can tell, is that he never put enough into telling the factual details of his relationship to Maggie Cassidy for me really to get the idea of what had happened that drew him to her so intensely. He actually tells more than shows the emotion he felt towards her, which makes me wonder if he was really right when he mentions towards the beginning of the narrative that she was his first and only real true love. Shouldn't there have been more emotion flowing through the passages that related to her and their relationship, if that was really the case? I don't know, maybe the 20 years it had been since the events of the book faded some of those emotions a bit, but the places where his love really shines through in this book's storytelling are when he talks about his father and his boyhood friends. The wistful tone I mentioned earlier comes out a lot during these points, as he once makes a reference to the death of his father and at a couple of other points to the sad fates of his boyhood friends; it's obvious to me that by the time he was writing this book, he looked at the time it described as a wonderful time in his life, much better than where he was when he wrote it, and something that he regretted taking for granted back when he had it. Something he wished he could have back, but knew he never could. And the ache of his heart comes through in his beautiful words, at points making me tear up in sympathy with him.

The most surprising part of the book comes at the end, at a point when I thought I never would really understand his feelings for Maggie, after the relationship was basically over. For the last two chapters, the last 5 or 6 pages, he switches back to an omniscient third-person narrative voice, and tells the story of himself, 3 years after the rest of the book's events, back in Lowell working a crappy job and having one last reunion with Maggie Cassidy. It isn't the same, and the second he picks her up in his borrowed car, he knows it isn't the same, and it comes through so clearly just how disappointed he is, to have permanently lost the connection they once had. It reminded me of a lot of my own heartbreaks, my last pitiful attempts to salvage relationships that were beyond repair. Maybe Kerouac is better at describing lost love than love in full flower--God knows I am, so I can hardly criticize him for it--but it was only on the last page, in the last paragraph, when I really understood how he felt about all he'd had and all he'd lost with her. The 20 or so pages before it had been way less powerful than the beginning and middle sections of the book, and I was expecting the ending to kind of peter out, so when it suddenly brought itself together and hit with great force, I was stunned. Not so much pleasantly as just powerfully. And I'm glad it ended powerfully, even if it did once again cause me to choke up a bit.

Reading this book has made me want to tear back into the other Kerouac books I have, both that I've read ("Visions Of Cody" and "The Dharma Bums" in particular) and that I haven't read ("Big Sur" and the long-despaired "Desolation Angels"), but I think what I may actually do next is pick up Gerald Nicosia's "Memory Babe", a huge and supposedly definitive critical biography of Kerouac that I've owned since the day I bought "Maggie Cassidy" and never read either. I think I might like to see what someone other than he himself would say about the great events of his life. And then, of course, I'll probably go ahead and read a few more of his books....less

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