Neal Cassady - Collected Letters, 1944-1967

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PENGUIN BOOKS

NEAL CASSADY: COLLECTED LETTERS, 1944-1967

NEAL CASSADY was born in Salt Lake City in 1926. When, six years later, his mother parted from her alcoholic husband, the boy was left in the care of his father, with whom he lived in cheap hotels around Denver and took hobo trips across the country. Cassady began stealing cars for joyriding at the age of fourteen and was subsequently arrested several times, culminating in a years imprisonment at the Colorado State Reformator y, 1944-45. A year after his release, Cassady married his first wife, LuAnne Henderson. The pair traveled to New York City, where a long friendship with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, the founders of the Beat generation school of writing, began. In April 1948, Cassadys marriage to LuAnne was annulled; he then married Carolyn Robinson, settling in San Francisco. With Jack Kerouac a regular visitor, their times together and subsequent road trips across the United States were to become the subject matter of Kerouacs novels, in which Cassady is portrayed as Dean Moriarty and Cody Pomeray. Cassadys long, energetic letters inspired Kerouac to develop the spontaneous prose technique he first successfully employed in his 1951 scroll version of On the Road. Cassady was arrested in 1958 on a minor drug charge and spent two years in San Quentin Prison. In the 1960s he met the writer Ken Kesey, becoming his muse, fellow Merry Prankster, Acid Test show-man, and driver of the psychedelic bus. Neal Cassady died during a trip to Mexico in 1968, a few days before his forty-second birthday.

DAVE MOORE lives in Bristol, England, and is the author of many articles on the Beat writers. Founding editor of The Kerouac Connection magazine in 1984, he also writes on mystery and crime fiction as well as jazz and blues. He is currently at work on the definitive guide to the more than six hundred characters in Jack Kerouacs work.

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First published in Penguin Books 2004

Copyright Carolyn Cassady, 2004

Notes and commentary copyright Dave Moore, 2004
All rights reserved

Page 468 constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Cassady, Neal.
[Correspondence. Selections]
Collected letters, 1944-1967 / Neal Cassady ; introduction by Carolyn Cassady ;
compiled and edited by Dave Moore.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-17733-4

1. Beat generation. 2. Cassady, NealCorrespondence. 3. Cassady,
CarolynCorrespondence. 4. Ginsberg, Allen, 1926Correspondence.
5. Kerouac, Jack, 1922-1969Correspondence. 6. Authors, American
20th centuryCorrespondence. I. Moore, Dave, 1941- II. Title.
PS228.B6C37 2004
973.92092dc22
[B] 2003061687

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Acknowledgments

This book could not have appeared without the encouragement, support, and willingness of Carolyn Cassady. I am indebted to her for making her entire archives available to me and answering innumerable questions about her times with Neal. She read the manuscript, correcting my mistakes and adding further illuminations. My greatest thanks are due to Carolyn, not least of all for feeding me so well during my visits to her home.

Neals son, Curtis Hansen, provided rare copies of the letters Neal wrote to Curtiss mother, Diana Hansen Cassady, and these are published here for the first time. Id also like to express my gratitude to Curtis for giving his permission for the inclusion of his mothers letters to Neal.

I am also extremely thankful to Neals bibliographer Michael Powell for his constant support and the provision of elusive items from his collection. Michael read the manuscript in both draft and proof forms and made many valuable suggestions.

Sandra (sloy) Nichols also read the proofs, and her helpful contributions, as well as her constant support, are greatly appreciated.

Neals biographers David Sandison and Tom Christopher cheerfully answered questions and provided useful information throughout the project, and Im grateful to Owen Carlson for his specialist knowledge of the U.S. railroad system.

Id like to thank the staff at various libraries who assisted me in my quest to obtain more of Neals letters, in particular Tara Wenger at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas, Polly Armstrong at the Department of Special Collections and Archives, Stanford University, and Bernard R. Crystal at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University.

Thanks are also due to the following people, who helped in many different ways: Rod Anstee, Jason Arthur, Ken Babbs, Jim Burns, John Cassady, Ann Charters, Faith Evans, Bill Gargan, Eric Mercer, Bill Morgan, Horst Spandler, Gerd Stern, Kathy Van Leeuwen, George Walker, Joan Wilentz, and Seymour Wyse. Special thanks also go to my editors at Penguin, Michael Millman and Bruce Giffords, for their help and guidance.

DAV EMOORE

Introduction

As William Shakespeare once remarked, One man in his time plays many parts. Who was Neal Cassady? This book that Dave Moore has put together shows me how many facets there were to this sparkling diamond in the rough, yet I knew only one or two. So for me it is a book of revelations, and I find I am as guilty as anyone else of promoting myths about him.

My life with him was only one of the many balls he juggled in the air and was able to keep separate from the others. Does this new knowledge, some of which is revolting to me in the extreme, make me love him any less? Somehow this isnt possible with Neal, no matter how much I disapprove of and regret many of his actions. It wasnt what he did, but what he was that got under your skin. All the women he knew and/or loved that I still contact feel the same way.

Clairvoyants saw a halo around him; many considered him a saint. His compassion and humane instincts shone through most of his actions. To him it was not cowardice when he ran from an aggressor, just common sense; he didnt want to hurt anyone, and why ask to get hurt? He also had an uncanny gift for defusing impending violence in others. He is known to have hit women, but Im sure they asked for it, and that it was a sexual turn-on, as some have confessed to me.