The Joan Anderson Letter.

I have just finished reading The Joan Anderson Letter by Neal Cassady. It did not take long to read it because it is only a short hardback book of 188 pages. This is the second edition published 2021 in London by Eyewear Publishing. The first 46 pages are taken up with an extensive introduction by A. Robert Lee who is an expert on Beat Generation literature and has published several books on the subject previously. This letter written by Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac in December 1950 has been described as the Holy Grail of the Beat Generation. It is a type written 16,000-word letter that Kerouac said was the greatest piece of writing he ever saw and would make Melville, Twain, Dreiser and Wolfe spin in their graves. Now I have read it, I do not think it is all quite what Jack cracked up to be, but I can see that it is an especially important document. I do not think it is actually a letter at all, it is a story told by Neal. He had his own literary ambitions which is why he sought out and befriended the likes of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. He wanted to learn from them to further his own writing career. I am sure when he wrote it, he was hoping that Jack would help him to get this ‘letter’ published. The story recounts Neal meeting and falling in love with this beautiful Jennifer Jones lookalike called Joan Anderson. She was already pregnant when they met. After a while Neal’s ardour cools and he suggests that they should go their separate ways. Things descend into chaos; Joan attempts suicide by drinking hydrogen peroxide and ammonia and tries to jump out of a hotel window. When hospitalised she loses the baby. There are other sub-plots and diversions, involving other women, an hilarious escape through a bathroom window, brushes with the law, jail time, and other adventures.

Neal by Carolyn Cassady.

The letter was only 18 typed pages, but it is action packed. The content is not what makes the letter important though. It is the style. When Jack read the letter, he was already a published author. His first novel The Town And The City came out a few months earlier in March 1950. It was a very traditional type of novel and was not a big success. Jack was searching for something more real. The Joan Anderson letter was a frantic, manic, torrent of words, with the typewriter barely keeping up with the flow of thoughts. This is what Jack Kerouac was looking for. A stream of consciousness style that he would later describe as Spontaneous Bop Prosedy. He got to work, and On The Road, became a classic novel with Neal Cassady the hero as Dean Moriarty.

Jack sent the Joan Anderson letter to Allen Ginsberg who in turn sent it to a publisher called Gerd Stern, and it disappeared. Stern lived on a houseboat and it was thought it might have gone overboard. Nothing was heard of the letter until it was discovered in 2012 by Jean Spinoza whose father had been given the papers of a defunct publisher called The Golden Goose Press. There was a dispute about ownership of the letter, which was finally resolved, and the letter was sold at auction to Emory University, Georgia and it was put on view in an exhibition in 2018. In the back of the book are photos of the eighteen pages of the letter. The original letter is almost as important a document as the original scroll of On The Road. The Cassady family cooperated in the publication of the letter and contributed some nice photos and drawings by Carolyn Cassady who I had the pleasure of meeting over 30 years ago. I am glad that this legendary letter has finally seen the light of day because it was an important catalyst in the development of modern writing.

Me & Carolyn Cassady.