Use My Name

By looking sympathetically yet realistically at the lives of five people who knew Kerouac intimately, Jones creates a new picture of the Beat legacy that foregrounds the "minor characters" and accurately depicts the heroism of their not-so-ordinary lives. Long before the trend of debunking Kerouac and the Beats had begun, Jones perceived that there were other stories to be told.

Use My Name presents the saga of five people whose lives were joined, often in emotional or legal conflict, by their relationship with the same man, the King of the Beatniks.