This list of characters from Jack Kerouac’s novels originally appeared in Issue Three, which is no longer available. Find other issues of Beatdom here. This is also rather out of date. You can find a more comprehensive and regularly updated list of Kerouac’s characters here.
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Anyone who knows anything about the Beat Generation knows that while Ginsberg may have been the movement’s publicist, Kerouac was its archivist. Yet his books are called novels, not autobiographies or non-fiction texts. We can pretty much go through each one of Kerouac’s books and find other sources to verify the accuracy of an event, but all the names, and some of the places, are fictitious.
These pseudonyms fool no one, however, and are deliberately transparent. Writing in dangerous times, Kerouac’s publishers demanded he change names to avoid lawsuits and prosecution, and given the furor surrounding ‘Howl’ and Naked Lunch, it’s probably for the best that he did.
But nowadays we are surrounded by books, websites, and documentaries about the Beat Generation, and anyone that takes an interest is soon provided with a view of the players in the movement. Their personalities were all unique, and after learning a few key facts, we can take a look at Kerouac’s novels again and remove the masks, revealing the true participants in the fables of the Beat Generation.
The following is a list of real people who appeared in Kerouac’s novels, along with the different names Kerouac gave them.
Bio: Ansen was a big influence on several of the Beats. He was never well-known outwith the Beat circle, but he made an impact on Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg and Corso. He appeared in both On the Road and Naked Lunch.
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Bio: Burroughs was one of the key players in the Beat Generation and an influence upon subsequent countercultural movements. Most famously, he wrote Naked Lunch and pioneered the cut-up method in his various literary experiments.
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Bio: In his short life, Cannastra made a big impression upon the early Beat Generation. He was a wild man like Neal Cassady and celebrated as such. He appears in several Ginsberg poems and in two Kerouac books.
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Bio: Carr was central to the Beat movement. He was the embodiment of Beat – intelligent yet wild, well-read but crazy. He introduced Kerouac and Ginsberg. “Lou was the glue,” Ginsberg quipped. He killed David Kammerer and sought refuge with Burroughs and Kerouac.
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Bio: She was the wife of Neal Cassady and friends with Ginsberg and Kerouac. Cassady married the Holy Goof even after finding him in bed with Ginsberg and his first wife. She was immortalised in On the Road, and wrote her own memoirs, called Off the Road.
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Bio: Daughter of Neal and Carolyn Cassady. Cathy has written for Beatdom here.
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Bio: Daughter of Neal and Carolyn Cassady
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Bio: Son of Neal and Carolyn Cassady. Named after Kerouac and Ginsberg.
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Bio: Cassady is almost as well known for his alias, Dean Moriarty, as his real name. The legendary Holy Goof inspired much of the Beat movement and literature, despite having no famous literary output of his own. He was Ginsberg’s lover and ‘secret hero of these poems’.
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Bio: Introduced Cassady to Kerouac and Ginsberg, thus creating the inspiration for so much Beat literature.
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Bio: Corso is a hero here at Beatdom. Whereas most would think of the holy trinity of Beats – Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs – we rate Corso among them as an equal. His life was long and tragic, but his poetry immortalised him as a great.
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Bio: Cowen’s tale is heart-wrenching. She was part of the Beat group until confined to a mental institution where she killed herself. Her story explains why so few females ever made it to become Beat icons.
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Bio: Cru dated Edie Parker before she married Kerouac, who was also his friend. Cru is famous as Remi Boncoeur in On the Road, who inspired Kerouac’s seminal trans-American journey. Kerouac and Cru wrote an unproduced screenplay together in San Francisco.
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Bio: Although his role in the Beat Generation was small, Duncan was a large figure in various countercultural movements of the twentieth century.
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Bio: Although he is only listed as appearing in one novel, Ferlinghetti’s importance in the Beat Generation cannot be overstated. He was the founder of City Lights, the Beat publisher and bookstore. Ferlinghetti encouraged Ginsberg after the Six Gallery Reading, and fought in defence of ‘Howl’.
Bio: Gaddis was never a Beat writer, but counted among his friends many well-known Beats.
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Bio: Burroughs’ addict friend from Mexico City.
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Bio: Ginsberg was the core of the Beat Generation. He was perhaps the most important American poet of the 20th century and his tenacity was quite possibly what transformed the Beats into some form of literary movement.
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Bio: Allen Ginsberg’s father, who was a poet and a high school teacher.
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Bio: Another of Cassady’s women, Hansen was introduced to the Adonis of Denver by Kerouac, and was soon pregnant. Cassady took Kerouac to Mexico to get a divorce from Carolyn, to make the baby ‘legitimate’, but soon went back to Carolyn.
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Bio: Haverty was Kerouac’s second wife. She was a friend of Cannatra’s, who met Kerouac and married him weeks later. She had Kerouac’s daughter, Jan, but Kerouac refused for years to acknowledge the child.
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Bio: Poor Luanne was integral to the story of On the Road. At fifteen, she married Cassady, and three years later was dumped for Carolyn. Yet not long after that Carolyn was dumped again for Luanne. She was one of the early women to influence the Beats.
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Bio: A friend of Neal Cassady from Denver. He was interviewed by Beatdom here.
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Bio: The wife of Al Hinkle. ‘A stolid mother Earth figure of indeterminate age’.
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Bio: The ‘quiet Beat’, Holmes is widely considered to have written the first Beat novel. Go was the story of his friendship with Kerouac & co. Perhaps Holmes is most famous for when Kerouac used the word ‘Beat’ to describe to him the nature of their generation.
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Bio: Huncke was hugely a influential figure in the life of Burroughs, and became known in his own right as a writer and sub-culture icon. He was a long-time drug addict and relentless criminal.
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Bio: Another of Cassady’s women, Jackson cavorted with Carolyn’s husband until she could take being second no more, and killed herself.
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Bio: Kerouac and Cassady visited ‘Random Varnum the great American poet’ and shocked his family with their poverty. The true story behind this meeting, and Jarrell’s relationship with Corso, is told in Beatdom #23.
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Bio: One of Kerouac’s Denver friends, Jeffries travelled with Kerouac and Cassady to Mexico City.
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Bio: Johnson wrote Minor Characters and Door Wide Open about her relationship with Kerouac during the time his fame grew after On the Road. She was interviewed by Beatdom here.
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Bio: Kammerer, a friend of Burroughs, was obsessed with Lucian Carr until Carr murdered him in 1944. The murder was important in Beat history and inspired several pieces of writing.
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Bio: Kandel is respected, but not famous, as a poet of ‘holy erotica’. She had a brief relationship with Kerouac and participated in the later counterculture.
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Bio: Kerouac’s older sister.
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Bio: Gerard Kerouac died at the age of nine. He was Jack’s older brother, and a figure that Jack always felt incapable of matching. He was revered as a saint by nuns, and throughout his whole life, Kerouac never stopped thinking about his brother.
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Bio: Kerouac’s mother. She remained a huge influence on his life, living with him for much of his adulthood. Her harsh Catholic worldview marked her son with a constant guilt about life. She seems an altogether unpleasant figure and outlived her own son.
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Bio: Kerouac was a core member of the Beat Generation. A confusing, confused, dualistic man. He was a magnificent novelist but his own tragic life ended prematurely.
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Bio: Kerouac’s father died in 1946, and shortly after this, Kerouac sat down and wrote The Town and The City. He promised his dying father that he would always look after his mother.
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Bio: One of the poets who read at the legendary Six Galley Reading 1955, Lamantia chose to read poems by a dead friend. Lamantia was involved in movements before and after the Beat Generation.
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Bio: LaVigne was a Beat artist who collaborated with Beat writers, including doing graphics for Ginsberg.
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Bio: The New Journalism exponent is mentioned briefly during the ‘Passing Through New York’ section of Desolation Angels.
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Bio: McClure is one of the nicest men I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. When he spoke to Beatdom, he spoke of Kerouac’s silky voice, and his own voice nearly melted my ears. McClure was one of the poets at the Six Galley Reading.
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Bio: A Buddhist neighbour of Kerouac and Snyder, who quickly became friends with the two Beats.
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Bio: A mistress of Cassady in San Francisco, and later, Kerouac’s girlfriend during the story of Big Sur.
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Bio: Poet and novelist. Author of The (Diablos) Notebook.
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Bio: Although Montgomery appears as a clownish character, he was an editor and publisher of Kerouac’s books.
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Bio: Part of the circle of friends that made up ‘the Subterraneans’, Newman was a record producer and store owner in New York’s Village.
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Bio: Orlovsky is most famous as Ginsberg’s long-time lover, but was also a poet in his own right (at least after Ginsberg’s provocation). He travelled the world and in 1974, joined the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute, teaching poetry.
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Bio: Parker was Kerouac’s first wife, if only for a short time and for strange reasons. They married more or less to get Kerouac out of jail, and split soon after. Parker also shared a flat with Joan Vollmer, that was frequented by many of the Beats in the early days of the movement.
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Bio: Time Magazine mistakenly labelled Rexroth ‘father of the Beats’, much to the poet’s chagrin. However, one could forgive their error: Ferlinghetti considers Rexroth his mentor; the poet MC’d the Six Gallery Reading; he introduced Ginsberg to Snyder; he spoke in formal defence at Ginsberg’s obscenity trial…
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Bio: Ferlinghetti labelled Snyder ‘the Thoreau of the Beat Generation’, and the description seems fair. He was the only Beat not from an urban background, and with little passion for the town. He was to The Dharma Bums what Dean Moriarty was to On the Road.
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Bio: Temko was an architectural critic and writer, who was portrayed in On the Road as against ‘arty’ snobs, but essentially snobbish himself.
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Bio: The famous novelist had a homosexual relationship with Kerouac that was altered into a platonic night together for The Subterraneans. According to Norman Mailer, Vidal ‘ruined’ Kerouac by sleeping with him.
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Bio: A Mexican prostitute and morphine addict, with whom Kerouac fell in love and consequently wrote Tristessa.
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Bio: Vollmer was the most famous woman of the Beat Generation, but for all the wrong reasons. She was ferociously intelligent, and held her own with the men during the early all-night discussions in New York, but is now known as Burroughs’ wife, whom he shot and killed in 1951; she also may have slept with Kerouac.
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Bio: Uhl was a friend of Cassady’s from Denver.
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Bio: Watts was a Zen scholar who became friends with Kerouac.
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Bio: Weaver was Kerouac’s girlfriend in New York for a period, and a friend of Ginsberg. She seems to have been intelligent and attracted to the intellect of the Beats. She spoke to Beatdom here.
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Bio: Welch was a poet in San Francisco, who lived with Snyder, Whalen, and Ferlinghetti, at various times, and was much admired by William Carlos Williams. In 1971, he disappeared in the Californian mountains and left a suicide note, but his body was never found.
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Bio: Whalen lived with Snyder and Welch, and read at the Six Gallery Reading. He was always interested in Buddhism and eventually became a monk.
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Bio: The Modernist poet was a huge influence upon many members of the Beat Generation, both through his style and his mentoring. He was friends with Rexroth, taught Snyder, Whalen and Welch, and most famously mentored Ginsberg.
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If you know of any others, or any mistakes, please let me know.
I think John Montgomery appears with his own name in Satori in Paris as well.
Thanks for the note.
Mr. Wills,
I saw Max Gail (actor, "Barney Miller") in "Visions of Kerouac" in 1976 at the Los Angeles Odyssey Theatre. I don't believe there was a character in the play for Gore Vidal - yet, at the end of the first act, Kerouac lets his male companion have sex with him. That must have been Cassaday - it was practically a two man show. Before entering that Kerouac and Cassaday did have a relationship of a sexual nature - you might want to check that play. Or Google Max Gail - at least one sight has him with a production company in Malibu. I bring this up because Kerouac's sexual ambivalence may have entered into his tortured persona.
Just wondered. It may have been a slip but could Stan Shepard have been Sam Shepard. Even the physical description and carriage sounded like Sam.
Thanks
Max
David Amram was Mezz McGillicuddy - the crazy French hornist in On the Road.
Try Milton "Mezz" Mezzerow, clarinetist with all the greats during the great times in Harlem, Pannama and elsewhere. (Ask Dr.John) Mezz supplied Cannabis products to all the great Harlem era blowers ad eve had a patented rolling technique. Harlem slang for pot was Mezz or mezzerow- Thee songs and characters must have bee widely known during the 40's NYC area
Must have been a composite character - David Amram plays French Horn and was on the scene, involved with "Pull My Daisy" and so on.
You need Paul Smith from Big Sur! He's a bass player living in Alameda CA
Snyder: "He was the only Beat from an urban background..." This doesn't make sense.
that must be misquote. Ginsberg came from a suburban/urban background, and Gregory Corso was definitely from the city.
Who is June Evans?
What about the characters in And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks?
This was written a while ago and hasn't been updated since publication. Sorry.
Alene Lee
Astonishingly intelligent woman and girlfriend of Kerouac and had affections for Allen Ginsberg. "Queen of the subterraneans" in New York, she was immortalized as Mardou Fox in Kerouac's novella 'The Subterraneans', in which the story was transferred to San Francisco. Not much is known about her other than what Kerouac presents, as well as a few comments and photographs from Ginsberg and Burroughs.
like anne onimos said, gary snyder, urban background, what? i think you mean rural.
I think Esperanza Villanueva may be Terry in On the Road?
No, her name was Beatrice Kozera, or Bea Franco. She died in 2013. There's novel about her by Tim Hernandez, called "Manana Means Heaven."
no, teresa is not tristessa, in spite of the rhyme
How are you finding China darling?
I'm dying to know who Princess is??? Did I miss her in the list? Does anyone know?
Does anyone know anything about Rosie in The Dharma Bums?
Rosie's real name was Natalie Jackson - a key figure of the San Francisco Beat scene in the 50s, she had an affair with Neal Cassady - he was constantly sneaking away from his wife to be with her. One night (1956? I think - right around the time of the Six Gallery "Howl" reading) strung out on Benzedrine, freaked out after Cassady involved her in a scam to extort money from his wife, Kerouac was watching her, trying to calm her down with Buddhist readings. It didn't work - she jumped from the roof (and maybe slit her throat before doing so). Cassady and Kerouac, afraid of the police, snuck out the back door. It was pretty traumatizing for both of them. That's the best my memory can do. Look her up - you'll find a lot more about her.