Carolyn Cassady, 1923 – 2013

Today the Beat community was saddened to hear of the death of Carolyn Cassady. Carolyn is well-known to Beat fans partly as the wife of Neal Cassady, and also through the work of Jack Kerouac. She played an important role in these men’s lives, but also contributed to the world of Beat studies by writing two memories of her involvement in the movement: Heartbeat, which was made into a movie starring Sissy Spacek, and Off the Road.

In 2007, when I was founding Beatdom, I spoke with Carolyn a few times via e-mail and she was tremendously supportive of the project. She continued to help in various capacities, and later we published an interview she did with Spencer Kansa.

She lived a long life and will be greatly missed.