Audiobook16 hours
The Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac
Written by Joyce Johnson
Narrated by Carrington MacDuffie
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
In The Voice Is All, Joyce Johnson-coauthor of the classic memoir Door Wide Open, about her relationship with Jack Kerouac-brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities.nbsp; Looking more deeply than previous biographers into how Kerouac's French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider's vision of America, shenbsp; tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of On the Road, followed by Visions of Cody. By illuminating Kerouac's early choice to sacrifice everything for his work, The Voice Is All deals with him on his own terms and puts the tragic contradictions of his nature and his complex relationships into perspective.
Author
Joyce Johnson
Joyce Johnson's eight books include the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award winner Minor Characters, the recent memoir Missing Men, the novel In the Night Cafe, and Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters 1957-1958 (with Jack Kerouac). She has written for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and lives in New York City.
Related to The Voice Is All
Related audiobooks
The Haunted Life: And Other Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Desolation Peak: Collected Writings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Writer's Diary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chronicles: Volume One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bowie's Bookshelf: The Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie's Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5WFMT Chicago Radio Interview 1963 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJack Kerouac: A Few Nights on the Road with Jack Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Set the Boy Free: The Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Bob Dylan Matters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Why Bowie Matters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo Hell and Back: My Life in Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers, in the Words of the Last Man Standing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSkydog: The Duane Allman Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One and Only: The Untold Story of On the Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Light Come Shining: The Transformations of Bob Dylan Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Tarantula Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWill You Miss Me When I'm Gone?: The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dylan Does Rome Bob Dylan 2001: The Lost Interviews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJim Morrison: an American Saint Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHooking Up Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bang Bang Crash Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound: Dylan, Nashville, and the Making of Blonde on Blonde Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Icon Remembers, Kris Kristofferson: Legends of the 1960s; Days of Rage and Promise Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Literary Biographies For You
Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Moveable Feast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lit: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rude Talk in Athens: Ancient Rivals, the Birth of Comedy, and a Writer's Journey through Greece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing into the Wound: Understanding trauma, truth, and language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Capote: A Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5People, Places, Things: My Human Landmarks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bible: A Biography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Boy's Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Professor and The Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Marriage Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Intelligence for Dummies: Essays and Other Collected Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chronicles: Volume One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that Scandalized the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Papillon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5North of Normal: A Memoir of My Wilderness Childhood, My Unusual Family, and How I Survived Both Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5These Precious Days: Essays Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: A Memoir Based on a True Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for The Voice Is All
Rating: 4.428571428571429 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
7 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5most moving biography I have read of Kerouac- poetic, accurate, truthful.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Impressive, enthralling – and probably Kerouac’s last wish.Just the compilation of this book is astounding. Hunting through all his letters, ceaseless journals, half written manuscripts, and the personal accounts and books of his friends and lovers – is a monumental task. The author Joyce Johnson related in a book reading in Brooklyn that this book took her 4 years to write. Each bit of information was cataloged with copious notes. The painstaking research is so dedicated it seems to be a testament of love.Johnson succeeds in describing Kerouac’s life. She shows both, how he is seen by others and how he sees himself. Combining these with his published books and history, a picture of Kerouac comes together in a book which he would never have been able to write himself. It’s absolutely gripping to watch the intensity in which Kerouac lives in his journals. The dark raging inner struggles and his need to live every second of his life to the fullest, sheds light on what it means to be in the beat generation. I can only help feel like what Kerouac had been trying to describe his whole life in his books can only accurately and fully be described by Johnson in his biography. Johnson shows Kerouac’s life and the way he lived, dedicated to dreams and passion, was his real accomplishment.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Johnson is the first biographer of Jack Kerouac to delve into his inner conflict of being Franco-Canadian and American. She writes about how this conflict, and the feeling of always not quite fitting in, made an impact on his writing and his style. Told with love and compassion for a cast of characters who must have been hard to love, especially Jack at times, the influence of the Beat Generation on literature and society, comes through. This is a well-written, heavily researched book worthy of repeat readings.