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Rating: 
Summary: Midwest Book Review - riveting bio, skillfully written
Review: Chronologically, from birth to death, author Nicosia tells Kerouac's life story with unflinching honesty and utmost respect. Blessed with a sharp memory, very early on Jack's childhood friends nicknamed him "Memory Babe" and that is where the book got its name. Packed with fascinating details and exquisitely written, this book needs to be discovered by a younger generation of readers.
Many of us alive today have heard of Jack Kerouac but I doubt few know the details of his tragic life. That he remains the voice of a generation and a literary icon goes without saying. Kerouac was a physically beautiful but emotionally flawed man with a tormented spirit. He spent his life as man and writer trying to prove that "the past is the root of the future, and that a man cannot live without the continuity of both." Jack remembered everything he heard, as if words were sacred and his mind was a sponge. Despite his many flaws, he always paid "exquisite attention to the sound of language."
Even as he mapped new territory as a writer, Kerouac was adrift as a man. As the first spokesman for the "beat" generation, he perfected that voice with guilt, self-doubt, and self-punishment. This biography clearly states Jack's definition of "beat": "beat down, beat up, all-tired-out." Still, his words were always carefully chosen. Word by word, Kerouac carefully created phrases to express time, place, emotion, and man's senses, communicating deep meaning. His writing was full of symbolism and visions, allegory and veiled reality, profanity and parody, as he groped his way with prose towards his own death. For his time, Kerouac's verbal ingenuity was unsurpassed.
Personally, his charismatic male persona disguised a quicksilver child, mischievous and unpredictable. As he aged, Jack became a brooding, paranoid, hard drinking drug user, insecure in his sexuality and prone to alcoholic blackouts. As addiction wrecked his health, his light slowly drowned out and he became a lonely and despairing figure. But for decades in between youth and death, this trusting, shy, socially awkward man became a literary legend.
Jack Kerouac rubbed shoulders with Jackson Pollock, Allen Ginsberg, and every jazz great of his day. He was published by several of the major New York publishing houses. His prose and poetry were unprecedented and have not been successfully imitated since. He died young, never fully realizing the effect of his mind and his work on subsequent generations.
Gerald Nicosia has penned THE definitive biography of Kerouac. From letters, journals, tapes, interviews, and Jack Kerouac's books themselves - all faithfully recorded in a detailed bibliography - the author has skillfully dissected the life of the "beat" generation's strongest voice. The result is both scholarly and deeply personal, touching and disturbing. It should be required reading in every college and university, and a must have book for any reader curious about Kerouac and his time.
Rating:
Summary: Midwest Book Review - riveting bio, skillfully written
Review: Chronologically, from birth to death, author Nicosia tells Kerouac's life story with unflinching honesty and utmost respect. Blessed with a sharp memory, very early on Jack's childhood friends nicknamed him "Memory Babe" and that is where the book got its name. Packed with fascinating details and exquisitely written, this book needs to be discovered by a younger generation of readers.
Many of us alive today have heard of Jack Kerouac but I doubt few know the details of his tragic life. That he remains the voice of a generation and a literary icon goes without saying. Kerouac was a physically beautiful but emotionally flawed man with a tormented spirit. He spent his life as man and writer trying to prove that "the past is the root of the future, and that a man cannot live without the continuity of both." Jack remembered everything he heard, as if words were sacred and his mind was a sponge. Despite his many flaws, he always paid "exquisite attention to the sound of language."
Even as he mapped new territory as a writer, Kerouac was adrift as a man. As the first spokesman for the "beat" generation, he perfected that voice with guilt, self-doubt, and self-punishment. This biography clearly states Jack's definition of "beat": "beat down, beat up, all-tired-out." Still, his words were always carefully chosen. Word by word, Kerouac carefully created phrases to express time, place, emotion, and man's senses, communicating deep meaning. His writing was full of symbolism and visions, allegory and veiled reality, profanity and parody, as he groped his way with prose towards his own death. For his time, Kerouac's verbal ingenuity was unsurpassed.
Personally, his charismatic male persona disguised a quicksilver child, mischievous and unpredictable. As he aged, Jack became a brooding, paranoid, hard drinking drug user, insecure in his sexuality and prone to alcoholic blackouts. As addiction wrecked his health, his light slowly drowned out and he became a lonely and despairing figure. But for decades in between youth and death, this trusting, shy, socially awkward man became a literary legend.
Jack Kerouac rubbed shoulders with Jackson Pollock, Allen Ginsberg, and every jazz great of his day. He was published by several of the major New York publishing houses. His prose and poetry were unprecedented and have not been successfully imitated since. He died young, never fully realizing the effect of his mind and his work on subsequent generations.
Gerald Nicosia has penned THE definitive biography of Kerouac. From letters, journals, tapes, interviews, and Jack Kerouac's books themselves - all faithfully recorded in a detailed bibliography - the author has skillfully dissected the life of the "beat" generation's strongest voice. The result is both scholarly and deeply personal, touching and disturbing. It should be required reading in every college and university, and a must have book for any reader curious about Kerouac and his time.
Rating:
Summary: Best Bio of a Great Writer
Review: I've read pretty much everything on Kerouac and the Beats ever written for several years. This is by far the best bio. His whole life is covered in the utmost detail..Good work Gerald Nicosia!
Rating:
Summary: Great biography and great writing.
Review: Memory Babe is in a rare category. This book accomplishes two things simultaneously that individually are rarely possible. First, it is an authoritative, definitive biography about one of the most influential people of the 1900s -- Jack Kerouac. Second, it is written in the kind of masterful style usually reserved only for great novelists. It is a biography that is also a work of art, just as a famous novel is a story that is also a work of art. In both cases, the reader's life is influenced -- spiritually and morally -- while the reading itself becomes an enlightening experience. The reader cannot help but forget they are reading a biography, so detailed, interesting and superbly crafted is the writing. When the reader remembers they are reading a biography, they are in awe at the years of painstakingly complete research that obviously preceded the final product. Enjoy reading about the life a profound man. Enjoy reading about him as told by a talented author -- Gerald Nicosia.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable!
Review: Of the two best-known Kerouac biographies -- the other being Ann Charters' -- Memory Babe is by far the more scholarly. Challenging and difficult, Gerald Nicosia's Memory Babe still entertains. Memory Babe is a treasure-trove, but not for the light reader.
Rating:
Summary: Briefs from major reviews of Nicosia's "Memory Babe"
Review: Review Briefs:"In 1969 Jack Kerouac died a premature death. While his legendary lifestyle and unique creative talent made him a hero in his lifetime, his literary influence has grown steadily since. With Memory Babe, (a childhood nickname honoring Kerouac's feats of memory), Gerald Nicosia gives us a complete biography of Jack Kerouac-an honest, discriminating and, above all, compassionate assessment. This edition is enhanced by many rare photographs never before published and the University of California edition has a New Preface." --J Grant, BookZen & CurrentBooks "By far the best of the many books published about Jack Kerouac's life and work, accurately and clearly written, with a sure feeling for Jack's own prose." --William S. Burroughs "Gerry Nicosia has one of the sharpest literary minds in America. Winner of the Distinguished Young Writer Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters in 1978 for MEMORY BABE: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac , then a work-in-progress...[he is also the] author of many critical essays concerning other subjects...Gerry in addition is a poet who writes the kinds of poems I like to read most, poems that tell stories about people...his book, LUNATICS, LOVERS, POETS, VETS & BARGIRLS was published by Host Publications of Austin, a company of Texans who are to be congratulated for bringing this volume into print...Nicosia is currently at work on Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement to be published by Henry Holt late 1998." --Al Aronowitz, The Blacklisted Journalist "[Memory Babe ] is a splendid work, illuminating the pathos of a beautiful young novelist who, like Elvis Presley, became an object of derision when he dared to age. . . . Whether or not a reader agrees with Nicosia's evaluation of Kerouac as a 'great' writer, he persuades the reader to return to Kerouac's work." --John Rechy, Los Angeles Times Memory Babe [is] the most relentless and thoroughly researched of the Ke! rouac biographies . . There is a day-by-day tracing of Kerouac's thoughts and movements astonishing in its exactitude. . . .For those who believe Kerouac was a great writer, there is no more useful guide to the Duluoz Legend, as Kerouac called his pantheon of novels." --Barry Gifford, USA Today "Gerald Nicosia's dedicated scholarship in Memory Babe has added important new material that significantly expands our knowledge of Kerouac and his literary achievement." --Ann Charters, editor of The Portable Beat Reader "[Nicosia] offers us an unsparing, complex, and finally compelling portrait of a writer who remains in the end, far though he fell, as large-souled as his admirers have always claimed him to be." --Adam Gussow, American Book Review "[Memory Babe] meshes well with Kerouac's own books, paraphrasing them, putting their story in chronological order and fleshing out the autobiographical legend." --Morris Dickstein, New York Times Book Review
Rating:
Summary: This Is The Best Kerouac Biography By Far
Review: Review Briefs: "In 1969 Jack Kerouac died a premature death. While his legendary lifestyle and unique creative talent made him a hero in his lifetime, his literary influence has grown steadily since. With Memory Babe, (a childhood nickname honoring Kerouac's feats of memory), Gerald Nicosia gives us a complete biography of Jack Kerouac-an honest, discriminating and, above all, compassionate assessment. This edition is enhanced by many rare photographs never before published and the University of California edition has a New Preface." --J Grant, BookZen & CurrentBooks "By far the best of the many books published about Jack Kerouac's life and work, accurately and clearly written, with a sure feeling for Jack's own prose." --William S. Burroughs "Gerry Nicosia has one of the sharpest literary minds in America. Winner of the Distinguished Young Writer Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters in 1978 for MEMORY BABE: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac , then a work-in-progress...[he is also the] author of many critical essays concerning other subjects...Gerry in addition is a poet who writes the kinds of poems I like to read most, poems that tell stories about people...his book, LUNATICS, LOVERS, POETS, VETS & BARGIRLS was published by Host Publications of Austin, a company of Texans who are to be congratulated for bringing this volume into print...Nicosia is currently at work on Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement to be published by Henry Holt late 1998." --Al Aronowitz, The Blacklisted Journalist "[Memory Babe ] is a splendid work, illuminating the pathos of a beautiful young novelist who, like Elvis Presley, became an object of derision when he dared to age. . . . Whether or not a reader agrees with Nicosia's evaluation of Kerouac as a 'great' writer, he persuades the reader to return to Kerouac's work." --John Rechy, Los Angeles Times Memory Babe [is] the most relentless and thoroughly researched of the Ke! rouac biographies . . There is a day-by-day tracing of Kerouac's thoughts and movements astonishing in its exactitude. . . .For those who believe Kerouac was a great writer, there is no more useful guide to the Duluoz Legend, as Kerouac called his pantheon of novels." --Barry Gifford, USA Today "Gerald Nicosia's dedicated scholarship in Memory Babe has added important new material that significantly expands our knowledge of Kerouac and his literary achievement." --Ann Charters, editor of The Portable Beat Reader "[Nicosia] offers us an unsparing, complex, and finally compelling portrait of a writer who remains in the end, far though he fell, as large-souled as his admirers have always claimed him to be." --Adam Gussow, American Book Review "[Memory Babe] meshes well with Kerouac's own books, paraphrasing them, putting their story in chronological order and fleshing out the autobiographical legend." --Morris Dickstein, New York Times Book Review
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