On the Road's 'Camille' Dead at 90

Carolyn Cassady was married to Neal for roughly 15 years
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 24, 2013 9:37 AM CDT
On the Road's 'Camille' Dead at 90
This Jan.16, 2006 file photo shows Carolyn Cassady, center, and two daughters visiting the Beat Museum in the North Beach district of San Francisco.   (AP Photo/George Nikitin, File)

Carolyn Cassady, a key figure in the Beat Generation of writers—both as character and author—has died at age 90 after slipping into a coma following an emergency appendectomy, the New York Times reports. Cassady, who inspired the character of Camille in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, was married to Neal Cassady, the writer who appears in the book as Dean Moriarty. She wrote two books about the Beat writers, Heart Beat: My Life With Jack and Neal (she was pushed by her husband to have an affair with Kerouac, and did so, KTVU reports) and Off the Road: My Years With Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg.

Married to Neal from 1948 to 1963, Carolyn took part in the men's wild lifestyle, but also acted as an anchor, raising a family amid Neal's many marital transgressions, the Times notes. In later years, she sought to dispel many Beat myths: "I kept thinking that the imitators never knew and don't know how miserable these men were," she said in 1972. "They think they were having marvelous times—joy, joy, joy—and they weren't at all." She died Friday near her London-area home. (More Carolyn Cassady stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X