Joyce Johnson was a twenty-one-year-old Barnard graduate, aspiring novelist and secretary at a New York literary agency, when she fell in love with 34 year-old Jack Kerouac on a blind date arranged by Allen Ginsberg nine months before the publication of On the Road.
She is the author of three novels, including The Night Café. Her other books include Minor Characters, which was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957–1958.
To fully understand the novel, Big Sur, it is important to set the stage of what was happening in Jack’s life before his transcontinental journey to California. Joyce was our conduit to his personal and professional highs and lows, providing invaluable first-hand insight and context to the pivotal time in Jack’s life when the publication of On The Road made Jack an instant celebrity.
