The Marvelous Helen Weaver

Here is an encore, from April 2010:

Shortly after I read the heartfelt and bittersweet memoir, "The Awakener," I contacted Helen Weaver. I was enthralled with her memories of her love affair with Jack Kerouac. We began to communicate in E-mails... and today, I am happy to call Helen my friend.

Helen met Jack Kerouac in November 1956, when at 7:00 on a Sunday morning he arrived with Allen Ginsberg at her apartment in 307 West 11th Street. This is a photo of that building that I took after I read the book. Helen was delighted with the photo, and she told me her window can be seen on the left, right behind the blue balloon hanging from a branch of that tree.





This is a view of the White Horse Tavern from the front of 307 West 11th Street.


This is 454 West 20th Street, where Jack Kerouac, in 1951, wrote "On The Road." I stood in front of the door through which he must have passed so many times.


And this is the southwest corner of West 20th Street where: "Dean, ragged in a motheaten overcoat he bought specially for the freezing temperatures of the East, walked off alone..."


"and the last I saw of him he rounded the corner of Seventh Avenue, eyes on the street ahead, and bent to it again."


This is now 325 West 13th Street, which is the location where Helen lived when she met Lenny Bruce. I do not know when this building was built... and it looks fairly new. The building where Helen lived may have been torn down for the construction of this newer apartment house.


This is 346 West 15th Street and it is where Allen Ginsberg lived from 1951 to 1952. It is where Jack Kerouac was introduced to Gregory Corso.


And this is a view of the block.


This is 149 West 21st Street and it was where Lucien Carr lived from 1950 to 1951. He and Jack Kerouac were friends and Jack visited him often. Bill Cannastra also lived in a nearby building that is now a parking lot.


And this is a view of the block.


This was added on January 21, 2010:
This is the front door of 421 West 118th Street, where Jack Kerouac lived with Edie Parker in the early 1940s.


This is 421 West 118th Street.


This is West 118th Street, looking toward Morningside Drive.

"The Awakener" is a beautifully written memoir that takes the reader to personal and heartfelt places of great joy and bittersweet memories.

Helen Weaver talks about her relationship with Jack Kerouac, and the book is so richly developed and defined that I felt the scenes were unfolding like a well-directed independent film. I was very caught up in the story.

I also had the feeling that I was becoming part of a wonderful time gone by... and I was motivated to visit several of the addresses mentioned in this book to put a visual to the text as the pages unfolded. 

Helen Weaver also discusses her other relationships from long ago... and she writes with honestly, clarity, and sincerity in terms of the direction of those relationships as the decades passed.

 Jack Kerouac, in "Desolation Angels," wrote: "So I actually felt like marrying Ruth Heaper and moving to a country home in Connecticut."

 If you are nostalgic for a time gone by and you want to hear "Ruth Heaper" tell her story, this book is a must!