A belated note today for another important book from Moloko Press.
We’ve already enthused about Oliver Harris‘ titles, (notably One Shot Mystery), but the press has produced (and is continuing to produce) many others – We’re presented with a wide-ranging and impressive list – (270 books when last we looked!). See here) for a full list of publications.
Ordinary Stupid People – Joan Vollmer’s Life Before The Beats Began by Catherine Marshall and Simon Johnson, our focus today, came out last year.
As the publishers note:
“De facto den mother of the nascent Beat movement during the 1940s. Aspiring writer. Her memory has long been framed within the narrative of her troubled five-year common-law marriage to William S. Burroughs, culminating in her accidental death, at Burroughs’s hand, when she was a 28-year-old mother of two young children.
Ordinary Stupid People: Joan Vollmer’s Life Before the Beats Began is the first monograph to explore Joan Vollmer’s development as a young adult in New York City, drawing context from the two early marriages which preceded her involvement with what would come to be known as the Beat Generation. The focus extends as far as 1945, introducing Joan’s friendship with Edie Parker and the storied series of apartments they shared in New York City which served as a focal point for early players in the Beat movement.
Given Joan’s early death in 1951, prior to Burroughs, Kerouac, and Ginsberg hitting the limelight, her memory has become a blank canvas onto which biographers, researchers and the Beat-curious public simply project what they want her to be. Drawing on newly-discovered primary sources, including photographs of Joan never before shared publicly, the book provides vibrant colour to the blank canvas of the young Joan Vollmer, and considers her standing as a potential contributor to the Beats’ literary legacy.
The book is a first extract from a wider biographical work on Joan Vollmer Burroughs which has received support and encouragement from members of the Vollmer family, as well as James Grauerholz, literary executor of the estate of William S. Burroughs.”
In the introduction to the book, the authors write:
“… Joan Vollmer’s memory has long been framed within the narrative of the troubled five-year common-law marriage to the writer William S. Burroughs… her accidental death at her husband’s hand is unforgettable, the most enduring event of her short life. The shooting made her life a taboo topic for those who knew her well and a subject of fascination for those who did not. But the shooting tells us nothing about the 28 years of Joan’s life that preceded it… Joan Vollmer was extraordinary. The dean of her college knew it. Burroughs knew it. We knew it, too…”
and from the opening paragraph (an explanation of the title):
“Almost 40 years ago in an interview with biographer Ted Morgan, writer William S. Burroughs made the provocative – yet seemingly offhand – comment that his wife Joan “had been married twice, as a matter of fact, and she hated both husbands. She married them and then hated them, for the simple reason that they were ordinary stupid people, way below her level.”
Cathy Marshall has published over a hundred scholarly articles about hypertext, digital libraries, ebooks, annotation, crowdsourcing, and personal digital archiving, as well as a book about ebook research. The upcoming full biography of Joan (written in collaboration with archivist, Simon Johnson) will be her first foray into biography.
Oliver Harris interviews Cathy Marshall and Simon Johnson, “Joan Vollmer’s Life Before The Beats Began” in an informative and in-depth article – here
