Joan Haverty Kerouac (1931– May 15, 1990), born Joan Virginia Haverty, was the second wife of writer Jack Kerouac and the author of an autobiography, ''Nobody's Wife: The Smart Aleck and the King of the Beats''. Joan Kerouac's autobiography, which existed only in manuscript form when she died, appeared in book form in 2000 after the Kerouacs' only child,

Jan Kerouac Janet Michelle "Jan" Kerouac (February 16, 1952 – June 5, 1996) was an American writer and the only child of beat generation author Jack Kerouac and Joan Haverty Kerouac. Early life and career Janet Michelle Kerouac was born a few months ...

, her half-brother, David, and David's brother-in-law John Bowers helped prepare it for publication. Joan Kerouac was born near

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York C ...

, and grew up there. At age 19, she moved to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

after befriending

Bill Cannastra William Cannastra (November 6, 1921 – October 12, 1950) was a member of the early Beat Generation scene in New York. He was a "wild man" figure that the writers in the group found interesting, similar to their fascination with Neal Cassady. ...

, a lawyer she met in

Provincetown, Massachusetts Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...

, while visiting an artists' colony. She remained close to Cannastra until his death in a subway accident in 1950. Later in 1950, Joan met Jack Kerouac in Manhattan. He invited her to his mother's home to meet his mother, Gabrielle Kerouac, and two weeks later Joan and Jack were married. Joan became the model for the character Laura in Jack Kerouac's novel '' On the Road''. The marriage, during which Joan became pregnant with Jan, lasted only eight months, and the couple separated before Jan was born. Jack for many years denied paternity. He went to court to avoid paying

child support Child support (or child maintenance) is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child (or parent, caregiver, guardian) following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid d ...

and did not meet his daughter until she was 10. After separating from Jack, Joan lived at times in other parts of the U.S., including San Francisco, the state of

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, and Eugene, Oregon. She remarried and eventually had three more children: David and twins Sharon and Kathy. In 1974, she changed her last name to Stuart. Joan Haverty Kerouac Stuart died on May 15, 1990, in Eugene. Reviewer David Adox said in ''The New York Times'' that ''Nobody's Wife'' "...shows the fragile and insecure side of ackKerouac, and interweaves details of Kerouac's life with the story of a young, smart and sensitive woman coming of age in the 1950s." A review in ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'', says that the book "...is as much about Haverty's early grab at independence in 1950s New York and the other men in that period of her life as it is about her brief marriage to the Beat hero...". The reviewer concludes that "...Haverty's straightforward, infrequently lyric prose isn't under the spell of the Beats–which will probably count against her with Kerouac-worshipping Beat fans."

Bibliography

Autobiography

* ''Nobody's Wife: The Smart Aleck and the King of the Beats'' (2000, published posthumously)

Magazine article

* "My Ex-Husband, Jack Kerouac, Is an Ingrate", ''

Confidential Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise usually executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access or places restrictions on certain types of information. Legal confidentiality By law, lawyers are often required ...

'', 1961

References

External links

"Nobody's Wife"
– Blog entry by J. S. Bowers, who edited the book {{DEFAULTSORT:Kerouac, Joan Haverty 1990 deaths 20th-century American women writers 1931 births Writers from Albany, New York Writers from Eugene, Oregon American autobiographers 20th-century American non-fiction writers