Edie Kerouac-Parker (September 20, 1922 – October 29, 1993) was the author of the memoir ''You'll Be Okay'', about her life with her first husband, Jack Kerouac, and the early days of the Beat Generation. While an art student under George Grosz at Barnard College, she and fellow Barnard student and friend

Joan Vollmer Joan Vollmer (February 4, 1923 – September 6, 1951) was an influential participant in the early Beat Generation circle. While a student at Barnard College, she became the roommate of Edie Parker (later married to Jack Kerouac). Their apartment ...

shared an apartment on 118th Street in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

which came to be frequented by many of the then unknown Beats, among them Vollmer's eventual husband

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

, and fellow Columbia students Jack Kerouac and

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

as well as

Lucien Carr Lucien Carr (March 1, 1925 – January 28, 2005) was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s; later he worked for many years as an editor for United Press International. Early life Carr was born in Ne ...

. Born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

, Parker was raised in

Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan Grosse Pointe Park is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 11,555 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. Bordering on Detroit with frontage on southern Lake St. Clair, it is the ...

. Edie and Jack were married on August 22, 1944 at

Manhattan Municipal Building The David N. Dinkins Municipal Building (originally the Municipal Building and later known as the Manhattan Municipal Building) is a 40-story, building at 1 Centre Street, east of Chambers Street, in the Civic Center neighborhood of Manhat ...

in downtown New York. At the time, Jack was in jail as an accessory after the fact in Lucien Carr's murder of David Kammerer. This event expedited their intention to marry as Jack's father, Leo, refused to bail him out of jail. Jack was released from jail long enough for him and Edie to be escorted downtown by two

NYPD The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

detectives to be married. Once married, Edie could access an inheritance from her grandfather's then-unprobated estate to post Kerouac's bail. The marriage was annulled in 1948. Edie appears as Judie Smith in Kerouac's novel ''

The Town and the City ''The Town and the City'' is a novel by Jack Kerouac, published by Harcourt Brace in 1950. This was the first major work published by Kerouac, who later became famous for his second novel '' On the Road'' (1957). Like all of Jack Kerouac's major ...

'', Elly in ''

Visions of Cody ''Visions of Cody'' is an experimental novel by Jack Kerouac. It was written in 1951–1952, and though not published in its entirety until 1972, it had by then achieved an underground reputation. Since its first printing, ''Visions of Cody'' has ...

'', Edna "Johnnie" Palmer of ''

Vanity of Duluoz ''Vanity of Duluoz: An Adventurous Education, 1935–46'' is a 1968 semi-autobiographical novel by Jack Kerouac. The book describes the adventures of Kerouac's alter ego, Jack Duluoz, covering the period of his life between 1935 and 1946. The boo ...

'', and herself in "The Original Scroll" – the unedited edition of ''On the Road''. Edie was played by actress

Elizabeth Olsen Elizabeth Chase Olsen (born February 16, 1989) is an American actress. Born in Sherman Oaks, California, Olsen began acting at age four. She starred in her debut film role in the thriller ''Martha Marcy May Marlene'' in 2011, for which she wa ...

in the film '' Kill Your Darlings''. Edie's memoir, ''You'll Be Okay – My Life with Jack Kerouac'', was published posthumously in 2007 by City Lights.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parker 1922 births Place of death missing 1993 deaths Writers from Detroit Barnard College alumni 20th-century American writers 20th-century American women writers