One and Only: The Untold Story of on the Road and Luanne Henderson, the Woman Who Started Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady on Their Journey Paperback – 2 April 2013

I read this right after reading 'The Voice is All: the lonely victory of Jack Kerouac', and I preferred that. One and Only doesn't give you that many untold secrets or insights than what you'd learn from The Voice is All, or, a couple years ago I read Jacks Book (biography). There were a few insights where i seemed to get a different perspective on Jack, and Neal too but I really don't care to learn about Neal. The one that stuck out was Jack being devastated when Neal left Jack and Marylou in Frisco and he cried in her lap... I started reading the last chapter, or section, written by her daughter, and only bec. Game of Thrones was on adverts and it was beside me in the dark; didn't finish, I don't care to learn about whatever her name was Lu Anne... It's not why I bought the book. I care about Jack. I do however recommend. Though in the introduction the writer talks about Kristen Stewart and I'm thinking come on get to Jack. He says how they got real close when he worked as their Beat instructor, then like on the next page he refers to her as Kirsten Dunst

I had no idea this existed until I stumbled across it on the Kindle app - perhaps an algorithm related my interest in the Beat era.I consider this to be a gem of a book, I'm so grateful to have found it and read it. LuAnne was so very insightful about people.I wish I could hear clips of her interviews so I could listen to her accent & cadence.Thanks Mr Nicosia!

Captivant. Outre son témoignage, c'est toute la personnalité de Luanne qui se révèle ici, une femme pleine de vie, une vie peu conventionnelle, dont les maîtres-mots sont générosité et chaleur humaine.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. After finishing "On The Road", I was left wondering what became of the women that were in the novel. Plenty could be found on Carolyn Cassady, but Lu Anne was still a mystery. She struck me as the more interesting of the two, and after finishing Gerald's bio, I think that is definitely the case. She really did live a colorful life, though not one I would have been comfortable in. She seemed like a beautiful person, inside and out.I agreed with the other reviewer when he said that the author tended to sweep misdeeds or questionable behaviors under the rug. I am assuming it was because he had the daughter helping with some of the research, as well as a need to protect the kind Lu Anne from public scrutiny. I personally believe she was a prostitute on more than one occasion, though I do not think that is a big deal. I also didn't believe she would have had some happily ever after with Jack Kerouac, nor that she was particularly into any man other than her beloved Neal. I would have liked to hear more about the stepfather, who was rather inappropriate towards Lu Anne. Got the impression that Ann Marie had a good relationship with him, and perhaps that why Gerald didn't "go there".A very informative and intriguing read, over all. The movie "On the Road" didn't get a lot of good reviews, but I will have to watch it just the same, as the author got me curious about it.

20yr old Neil Cassady and 15yr old Lou Ann Henderson met and married in 1946. At some point they left Denver for New York so Neil could become a writer. This book is about their lives meeting the people who would become those known as "The Beats", but also from the point of view of a young girl who was in at the beginning, later made a different life, and Neil never let her go. Other biographers of the Beats just took Caroline's description of Lou Anne, a sloppy whore, and ran with it. She was, in fact, a beautiful charming young woman who knew all of them before they were famous.

A lot of insight about Jack, Neal and the rest of the beat crowd without the self absorption found in other books on this topic. Very fun read.