One and Only

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
ONE AND ONLY

“
One and Only
is essential reading for anyone wishing to get the full picture of the Beat Generation. Lu Anne Henderson was Neal Cassady's lifelong love and was responsible for the friendship with Kerouac that gave us
On the Road
. Gerald Nicosia was always a loyal advocate of the women of the Beat Generation, and his remarkable interview with Lu Anne fills in an enormous gap in the story. It shows the vulnerability and insecurities of the main characters, and reveals the chaos of their emotional lives so that Kerouac and company finally emerge as real people! A great book.”

—Barry Miles, author of
Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats

 

“Gerald Nicosia is Kerouac's best biographer. Critics unanimously praised
Memory Babe
for its honesty, its broad, deep research, its narrative style, and its respect for and understanding of Jack Kerouac. Now he gives us a different kind of book in
One and Only
. I am fascinated by characters in fiction who live outside of the book and confront us in real life. Nicosia found Lu Anne Henderson and listened to her voice with great care. He's written the context, made room so that she can tell
her
truth about
On the Road
. We go again but differently on that mythic road with Jack and Neal.”

—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of
The Woman Warrior

 

“
One and Only
is an ongoing chapter in the riveting Beat saga, chronicling another life and its poignant hopes and fears. An unsung teen-heroine of the time, Lu Anne Henderson, the young woman on whom the character ‘Marylou' in
On the Road
is based, finally has her say. The book is an intimate and revealing portrait in the annals of American belletristic and real-life memory.”

—Anne Waldman, author of
Beats at Naropa
and co-founder of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Naropa University

 

“Gerald Nicosia performs a fascinating feat of balance with
One and Only
. While preserving his admiration for Jack Kerouac's writing, he explores—with the collaboration of Anne Marie Santos and the preserved words of Lu Anne Henderson—the faults of character which contribute to an ambiguous cult status for Jack Kerouac and his beau ideal, Neal Cassady. The book is a most valuable addition to Kerouaciana and the legend of Neal Cassady. It also gives Lu Anne a place she deserves, and has not gotten from others.”

—Herbert Gold, author of
Bohemia

 

“It takes a Zen-like skill to tightrope-walk the 60 years of complexity and rumor that lay across Beat legends Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. Gerald Nicosia effortlessly performs the feat using his interviews with Cassady's first wife, Lu Anne, as his point of entry. Nicosia has a historian's vision that generously accommodates the ambivalences and Rashomon quality of memory. With a breezy and genuine beatitude, Nicosia renders the pre-
On the Road
Beat world with an admiration that doesn't discount its occasional irony and fraud.
One and Only
is a book of masterful craft subversively camouflaged as coolly minimal in which the sophisticated tricks of the trade of fiction are used to tell a real story.”

—Kate Braverman, author of
Lithium for Medea
,
Palm Latitudes
, and
Squandering the Blue

 

“This is the missing back-story of the back-story of
On the Road
, the mysterious missing woman a lot of us sensed was there but invisible and silent. Until now. Nicosia has given her voice and made her visible, and she's extraordinary. No wonder both Kerouac and Cassady loved her.”

—Russell Banks, author of
Cloudsplitter

 

“Gerald Nicosia has done it again! He just keeps filling in the pieces of the Beat era for us.
One and Only
fleshes out the beginnings of
On the Road
and makes it fuller and more interesting. Lu Anne was certainly a force to be reckoned with. Her lust for life and fullness of being and generosity of spirit show through only too clearly. Her vital North Beach career, her mothering ability, her recovery from heroin addiction, her many marriages, her long clandestine affair with Neal, and her own longevity speak well for her love affair with life as well as with Neal. And her demand for a ‘broad margin to her life,' showing she had ‘as much right to go through every open door as a man had,' will strike many women as apt in their own lives. By the 60s, a number of us followed her. I read
One and Only
from cover to cover in one day, and Lu Anne's presence hovers with me still.”

—Joanna McClure, original Beat poet, author of
Extended Love Poem

 

“I read
One and Only
straight through and loved it, and loved the energy that was put into it. Lu Anne, much ignored by most of the biographers except Nicosia, finally comes across as a vital part of the Beat Generation. His new book is an informative and moving portrait of a girl who was really a lady, and lets us see once again how strong was the influence of womanhood on the major Beats, both negative and positive.
One and Only
is must reading and fills in many gaps. It will become an essential part of the Beat canon.”

—Jerry Kamstra, original Beat poet, author of
The Frisco Kid

 

“Gerry Nicosia is to the Beat Generation what Alan Lomax was to the history of the blues, the voice-catcher of his generation. In
One and Only
, written in collaboration with Anne Marie Santos, Nicosia reveals the story behind the story of the great American epic,
On the Road
, which is to say he uncovers one of its deeply buried secrets. Every myth has one, and the great unknown force that brought Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady together is revealed here for the first time in the vivacious voice of the vixen Lu Anne Henderson. Reading her story is like riding with her in the backseat on one of those long, bluesy romps across the great heartland.
Go, go, go...
”

—Phil Cousineau, author of
Wordcatcher
and
The Book of Roads

 

“The voice of Lu Anne Henderson rises up off the page in this tender yet psychologically acute memoir, transcribed by Gerald Nicosia from tapes he made thirty years ago. Henderson played a crucial, inspirational part in the lives of Cassady and Kerouac, and the true circumstances of their complex relationship are revealed here for the first time.
One and Only
also shows the poverty and chaos and sometimes the sheer scariness of the lives of the Beats. Above all, the book shows the vulnerability and lack of self-esteem, the confusion and jealousy, which lay behind Cassady and Kerouac's machismo. Henderson's crucial insight is that Cassady and Kerouac, despite their profound friendship, were ‘totally unaware of the other one's real feelings,' a situation which only got worse when they became cultural icons. This new book by Nicosia is an invaluable contribution to Beat history.”

—Ian MacFadyen, editor of
Naked Lunch at 50: Anniversary Essays

 

“What a great and important find: Lu Anne Henderson, aka Marylou of
On the Road
. Neglected by most of the scholarship, she put Jack and Neal together, is at the core of the movement that changed history, both literary and cultural history. But only Eastern establishment scholars and male-identified fans could be stunned by her. For Westerners, childhood was full of such women—the mothers we grew from. Henderson's authenticity is no surprise—is relief, joy, and truth. We owe thanks to Gerald Nicosia for the interestingly-crafted
One and Only,
a sweet book and a delightful, beautiful story that can never again be ignored.”

—Sharon Doubiago, author of
Love on the Streets

 

“In
One and Only
, Gerald Nicosia is a man burning with a story to tell like no other told before: the true story of the pre-legendary men and women upon whom the classic postwar novel
On the Road
's characters were modeled. Nicosia's sturdily edited portrait of Lu Anne Henderson from lengthy taped interviews and his dramatic and accurate narration of Lu Anne's life amongst
the
ur
-Beats and thereafter, with the help of her daughter Anne Santos, bring to light as never before the human dimensions of those lives before they were iconic. Lu Anne's life was not about Neal Cassady or Kerouac or any of them; her story is her humanity. Now, with Gerald Nicosia's
One and Only
, a master of living Beat history has brought to life for the first time a ‘Beat woman' who was a woman, first of all.”

—James Grauerholz, editor of
Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader

 

“Just as the Beats were the missing link between the bohemians and the hippies, so was lovely Lu Anne the missing link between Cassady and Kerouac. In this book, she reveals how they played the roles that were expected of them, and then expected by themselves, until finally their roles began to play them. Gerald Nicosia provides a backstage pass to a unique era of foibles and follies that range from poignant to preposterous, so that
One and Only
does indeed live up to its name.”

—Paul Krassner, author of
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture

 

“I always sensed Lu Anne was Neal's real sweetheart. He always had a special look on his face when he mouthed her name. Having been an intimate of major players in that generation, I am drawn to anecdotal, primary narratives like
One and Only
. For me, they're more interesting than the fictions like
On the Road. One and Only
reveals a good deal about the gene pool in that fabulous era. In Lu Anne's life, as in the larger culture, cool changed from hep to hip. This book reveals the spark, in flesh, of another holder of the flame.”

—Charles Plymell, author of
The Last of the Moccasins
and friend of Neal Cassady

 

“
One and Only
is an essential addition and corrective to the masculine locus of Beat Generation history. Lu Anne Henderson was a witness and participant in the legendary road trips and saw Neal Cassady, Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs in a clear-headed light. Nicosia's reclamation of her centrality to that experience is revelatory. Her testimony captures her complicated involvement with these men with clarity, compassion, and wise humor. This book is a necessary revelation of the female experience in postwar United States, not to mention the incredible story and insights into the times covered by
On the Road
and also the period afterward.”

—David Meltzer, original Beat poet, author of
San Francisco Beats: Talking with the Poets

 

“There have always been great women behind the important men of our collective literary existence. Lu Anne Henderson (Cassady) was the apocalyptic spark behind the rowdy duo of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady. According to the new book
One and Only
by Gerald Nicosia, a vital addition to the historical archives of Beat consciousness, Neal and Jack didn't get along with each other before Lu Anne connected them. Nicosia, one of our most important Beat chroniclers, here delves into places other researchers have left untouched.
One and Only
exposes the liveliness and magnetic charms of a beautiful woman with a beautiful soul, who led a fascinating yet problematic life.”