Baby Driver, Jan Kerouac
Baby Driver, Jan Kerouac
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Baby Driver

Author: Jan Kerouac, Amanda Fortini

Narrator: Kim Ramirez

Unabridged: 11 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/30/2026

Synopsis

The first novel by Jan Kerouac, daughter of Jack—a thrilling work of autobiographical fiction that captures with inspired detail a life driven by adventure, drugs, far-flung travel, and like her father, a relentless quest for pure experience.“Was it January or February? The coconut fronds waving, shining like green hair in the sun, gave no clue.” Fifteen-year-old Jan is pregnant, gamely living off rice and whatever fish her boyfriend John can catch in Yelapa, Mexico. Her sojourn there–both thrilling and heartbreaking–marks the beginning of a life of restless wandering. Jan Kerouac, the only child of Jack Kerouac, first published her autobiographical novel Baby Driver in 1981. Fearless and frank, Baby Driver is the story of a difficult childhood, marked by maternal warmth and paternal disregard, and of the heady freedom and precariousness of self-reliance.

About Jan Kerouac

Janet Michelle (Jan) Kerouac (1952–1996) was born in Albany, New York, several months after her parents, the writer and Beat generation icon Jack Kerouac and his second wife, Joan Haverty, separated. Raised by her mother on the Lower East Side of New York City, and unacknowledged by her father until age nine, Kerouac left home in her teens and traveled extensively in the United States, Mexico, and South America. She married John Lamb Lash, a writer, in San Francisco in 1968. She wrote three semi-autobiographical novels.

About Kim Ramirez

Kim Ramirez is a second-generation Irish-Mexican originally from Texas. Her storytelling career has flourished in front of the camera, behind the mic, and on the stage. She grew up around bilingual working-class families where people met the challenges of life with laughter, wise cracks, and sometimes head cracks. But through a series of opportunities, she had the privilege of experiencing life among the upper echelons of society as well. This unique background allows Kim to seamlessly adapt to a wide spectrum of roles, from portraying dry comedic characters with a gritty edge to a powerful queen commanding a room. Her voice is characterized by authenticity, richness, and a deep well of knowledge as well as a sharp dryness. She takes particular pride in having narrated books across a few genres that have Queer and BIPOC characters as the leads, two communities dear to her heart. When not in her booth or in front of the camera, she's busy momin' it up: cooking, crafting, or raising hell.

About Amanda Fortini

Amanda Fortini is a columnist for County Highway, a frequent contributor to T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and has also written for The New Yorker, The Believer, California Sunday, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Paris Review, among other publications. A 2020 recipient of the Rabkin Prize for arts journalism, she divides her time between Livingston, Montana, and Las Vegas, Nevada. She is working on a book of essays about Las Vegas titled Flamingo Road.

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Quotes

“If [Jack] Kerouac sometimes put a spiritual gloss on poverty and life on the edge, his daughter offered an unflinching vision.” The Guardian

“What’s rolled out in this ‘autobiographical novel’ is Jan’s childhood on the Lower East Side with gritty, hard-pressed mom Joan, and then her fast track into the 1960s demimonde: drugs, petty theft, drugs, Bellevue, drugs, juvenile detention centers, drugs. An older Jan in her twenties is also aired: commune life in New Mexico; working as a hooker; being a heroin-shooter; peyote session; a South American odyssey in the company of a scary psychopath.” Publishers Weekly

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