"... sometimes out of a trailer. Drink and drugs soften life’s jagged edges and get her through the day: 'I found the perfect formula to work on was a mixture of Spañada wine, Cold Duck and Squirt poured over crushed ice. That and bennies, or as Jenny called them, whaaat crawses. The drink, though quite potent, went down like cherry soda, and when coupled with the speed, produced a loose capable vigor just made to order for the job. During a normal day I would make about three trips across the lot through the quivering airwaves to the Circle K in my pink halter to hoard ingredients for the precious punch.'"
From "Her Father Wrote ‘On the Road.’ She Lived Her Own Version. Jan Kerouac’s 1981 novel 'Baby Driver' chronicles a fearless and windblown life entirely distinct from her famous parent’s" (NYT).
That's a review, by Dwight Garner, of "Baby Driver" — which is getting reissued. Jan Kerouac lived from 1952 to 1996. Her father died in 1969.
"To the young narrator, Jack Kerouac was a 'famous wino' who (usually) sent a minimal monthly support check to her mother. The narrator met him for the first time when she was 9. She was impressed by this handsome and 'naughty bummish fellow.' He came up to the family’s apartment after buying a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry at a liquor store. He finished the bottle during his visit. As he left, he called out to her, 'See ya in Janyary!' He didn’t come back. But occasionally she’d 'take out my one souvenir of his visit — the cork from the bottle of sherry.'"

20 comments:
Dwight 'Garner'? What does AA take us for??
My goodness, there is such a man. And he is married to Cree LeFavour.
OK, I'm stumped for further comment here.
That much was true...
Some of us can acquire a taste for anything with alcohol.
Perhaps reminding us that AI isn't the only intelligence that can be driven off the "guardrails" by means of "adversarial poetry" and bypassing "alignment constraints."
"Jenny called them, whaaat crawses."
White cross. Bennies, dex, manageable. Then came speed , downfall for many, but good for dentists
Rough life. Drugs and alcohol killed her early
https://archive.is/20251121155500/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/books/review/jan-kerouac-baby-driver.html
There can be no doubt that Ms. Kerouac came by her daddy issues honestly.
Speed and alcohol go well together, right up until they don't.
I feel that involuntary sex workers deserve our sympathy. But the voluntary type? Not so much...
I'd never heard of this book, only a movie by the same name that I cannot imagine is related. For that matter, I didn't know Kerouac had produced offspring.
"Her Father Wrote ‘On the Road.’ She Lived Her Own Version. Jan Kerouac’s 1981 novel 'Baby Driver' chronicles a fearless and windblown life entirely distinct from her famous parent’s"
Jack was in the right place at the right time. The fearless windblown life was getting a bit shopworn by the time Jan came along.
Gee, Kerouac's life was a mess, but he created even more of one. Maybe he was gifted, but his inattention caused a lot of wreckage.
I've never seen somebody try to use a book review as a mechanism to make the book better.
A fearless life, yeah yeah sure. That’s called romanticizing the eschaton. That there girl’s death was written in her DNA many years before. She never stood a chance
I tried that Sex Worker thing in the 70s. Went back to work after I lost damn near thirty pounds. Odessa is a brutal place.
It says a lot that the NYT thinks this is worthy to print.
Eyes down here. Progress.
Can we please retire the term "sex worker"? I mean, it's not like it's fooling anyone.
Sex worker is a semantic... empathetic? euphemism. A fetus... feature of social progress, equivocation, and indifference processed with liberal license.
Not news. Poor woman, may she rest in peace. Without NYT.
What does this teach us?
People rejecting dumb conventional middle class values to pursue a life of bohemian hedonism leave a lot of damage in their wake. Maybe we should consider the possibility that they are bad human beings.
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