Character Key
Kerouac often based his fictional characters on friends and family.
"Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same personae names in each work."| Real-life person | Character name |
|---|---|
| Jack Kerouac | Jack Duluoz |
| William S. Burroughs | Bull Hubbard |
| Carolyn Cassady | Evelyn |
| Neal Cassady | Cody Pomeray |
| Gregory Corso | Raphael Urso |
| Henri Cru | Deni Bleu |
| Claude Dalenburg | Paul |
| Robert Duncan | Geoffrey Donald |
| Bill Garver | Old Bull Gaines |
| Allen Ginsberg | Irwin Garden |
| Louis Ginsberg | Harry Garden |
| Joyce Glassman | Alyce Newman |
| Randall Jarrell | Varnum Random |
| Philip Lamantia | David D'Angeli |
| Robert LaVigne | Levesque |
| Norman Mailer | Harvey Marker |
| Michael McClure | Patrick McLear |
| Locke McCorkle | Kevin McLoch |
| John Montgomery | Alex Fairbrother |
| Peter Orlovsky | Simon Darlovsky |
| Alan Watts | Alex Aums |
| Gary Snyder | Jarry Wagner |
| William Carlos Williams | Dr. Williams |
Kerouac was not particularly conscientious about masking the identities of his friends in this work. Partway through Chapter 91, there is the line, "'Who wants to ride freight trains!' -Gregory- 'I dont dig all this crap where you ride freight trains and have to exchange butts with bums-'". Somehow both Kerouac and the editors missed that "Gregory" was not changed to "Raphael". Similarly, the locals of Tangiers call Old Bull Hubbard (Burroughs) "Boorows" in Chapter 52 of Book 2. In Chapter 43, he refers to "...the Sundays in Neal Cassady's writings..." The editors may have ignored this, since it refers to Neal as a writer instead of a friend. In Part 1 of Book 2 the locals are said to call Old Bull Gaines (Garver) "Senor Gahr-va". And in Chapter 80, the discussion of the meanings of Urso and Pomeray's names leads to a less than clear comparison to the name Corso.
Read more about this topic: Desolation Angels (novel)
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