Synopses & Reviews
From an award-winning author, a new memoir about loss and survival.
Joyce Johnson's classic Minor Characters is valued not only for its portrayal of her relationship with Jack Kerouac but also for its stunning evocation of what it meant to grow up female in the 1950s. In Missing Men, Johnson gives us an even more revelatory self-portrait as she examines from a unique woman's perspective the far-reaching reverberations of fatherlessness.
Born in 1935, she was an orphan's daughter, named for her grandfather, an immigrant poet from Warsaw who killed himself when her mother was only five. Johnson would marry two artists who were also fatherless. James Johnson died in a motorcycle accident, making her a widow at twenty-seven. Peter Pinchbeck, obsessed with reinventing abstract painting, was unable to commit himself to marriage and fatherhood. Telling a compelling story that has "shaped itself around absences," Missing Men presents us with the arc and the flavor of a unique New York life from the author's adventures as a Broadway stage child managed by her implacable mother to the fateful encounters that later brought her love and ultimately left her to make her way alone as an artist in her own right.
Review
"Lacking any agenda beyond the search for her own truth, Johnson's memoir is quietly successful not quiet as in small, but as would be the ideal environment for rumination: uncluttered, well lighted, a high remove offering the benefits of perspective." Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Unlike so many memoirs in which authors repay the real or imagined grievances inflicted upon them by others, in Missing Men Joyce Johnson reaches out to all these complicated people and thanks them for what they gave her. It is a big-hearted, commonsensical, thoroughly adult book." Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
Review
"Perceptive, engaging....A memoir of easy grace and lively intelligence, filled with striking portraits of individuals, a time, and a place." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Johnson's astute, witty, and mesmerizing memoir, a tale of romance, grief, and resilience, is radiant with compassion and rich in wonder at life's unpredictable demands." Donna Seaman, Booklist
Review
"What emerges from these reminiscences is another remarkable story of loss and survival, just as intriguing as Johnson's previous memoir. When read together, the two memoirs offer a portrait of a woman interested in both creating and inspiring art. Highly recommended." Library Journal
Synopsis
The author of Minor Characters provides an even more revelatory self-portrait as she examines from a unique woman's perspective the far-reaching reverberations of fatherlessness. 25 photos.
Synopsis
A groundbreaking portrait of Kerouac as a young artist—from the award-winning author of Minor CharactersIn The Voice is All, Joyce Johnson, author of her 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. 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, she 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 to 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.
Synopsis
Joyce Johnson’s classic memoir of growing up female in the 1950s, Minor Characters, was one of the initiators of an important new genre: the personal story of a minor player on history’s stage. In Missing Men, a memoir that tells her mother’s story as well as her own, Johnson constructs an equally unique self-portrait as she examines, from a woman’s perspective, the far-reaching reverberations of fatherlessness. Telling a story that has "shaped itself around absences," Missing Men presents us with the arc and flavor of a unique New York life—from the author’s adventures as a Broadway stage child to her fateful encounters with the two fatherless artists she marries. Joyce Johnson’s voice has never been more compelling.
Synopsis
Joyce Johnsonandrsquo;s classic memoir of growing up female in the 1950s, Minor Characters, was one of the initiators of an important new genre: the personal story of a minor player on historyandrsquo;s stage. In Missing Men, a memoir that tells her motherandrsquo;s story as well as her own, Johnson constructs an equally unique self-portrait as she examines, from a womanandrsquo;s perspective, the far-reaching reverberations of fatherlessness. Telling a story that has "shaped itself around absences," Missing Men presents us with the arc and flavor of a unique New York lifeandmdash;from the authorandrsquo;s adventures as a Broadway stage child to her fateful encounters with the two fatherless artists she marries. Joyce Johnsonandrsquo;s voice has never been more compelling.
Synopsis
A groundbreaking portrait of Kerouac as a young artist—from the award-winning author of Minor CharactersIn The Voice is All, Joyce Johnson, author of her 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. 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, she 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 to 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.
Synopsis
A groundbreaking new biography of Jack Kerouac from the author of the award-winning memoir Minor Characters Joyce Johnson brilliantly peels away layers of the Kerouac legend in this compelling new book. Tracking Kerouacs development from his boyhood in Lowell, Massachusetts, through his fateful encounters with Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and John Clellon Holmes to his periods of solitude and the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in his composition of On the Road followed by Visions of Cody, Johnson shows how his French Canadian background drove him to forge a voice that could contain his dualities and informed his unique outsiders vision of America. This revelatory portrait deepens our understanding of a man whose life and work hold an enduring place in both popular culture and literary history.
About the Author
Joyce Johnson is the author of three novels, including In the Night Café. Her other books include Minor Characters, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 19571958. Her articles and fiction have been published in major magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper's, Vanity Fair, and O Magazine.