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Joyce Johnson's "The Voice is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac" (2012)offers a sympathetic internalized portrayal of Kerouac, the divisions in his personality, and his calling as a writer. Johnson has published three novels, and other works of nonfiction, including the memoir discussed below.Johnson's life intertwined with Kerouac's. Joyce Glassman (b. 1935) had a relationship with Kerouac which began in 1957, months before the publication of "On the Road", and ended abrubtly in 1959. In 1983, nearly 25 after the relationship ended, Johnson wrote an eloquent reflective memoir, "Minor Characters" about her own early life as it interconnected with Kerouac's and other people in his circle. Minor Characters Written nearly thirty years later, in 2012, Johnson's biography covers Kerouac's (1922 -- 1969) early life through 1951. By 1951, Kerouac had published one novel, "The Town and the City" (1950). He had written "On the Road", but the book would not be published until 1957, when Kerouac and Johnson were in their relationship. Thus, Johnson writes of Kerouac during over 40 years after her relationship with him ended, and her book covers her subject's life before she knew him. She writes about Kerouac with obvious affection and love but with the detachment and reflection that comes with time. In the Introduction, Johnson comments on the passage of time as it influenced her understanding of herself and of Kerouac."If I had written this biography in my fifties, when there was so much less reliable information available, mistaken assumptions would undoubtedly have led me down some wrong paths. If I had attempted to write about Jack in my twenties, when my memories of my own relationship with him between 1957 and 1958 were still fresh, I would not have had the objectivity I brought to my memoir, Minor Characters, when I began it in 1981."As Johnson states, there are many approaches to writing about Kerouac, or any literary figure. Her book draws heavily of Kerouac's papers and on those of his friends and emphasizes what Johnson calls "his most important relationship -- the one he had with his work." Her book portrays a gifted, complex, highly troubled individual who found his calling as a writer early in life and pursued it with intensity. She portrays the private Kerouac, the person no one ever saw, "the man alone in a room writing".Johnson is most interested in describing Kerouac's long, painstaking development as a writer. Thus she describes the three years of intense, isolated effort Kerouac spent writing his first published novel, "The Town and the City." Then, legend has it that Kerouac's most famous book, his second novel "On the Road" was written on a typed scroll in a matter of weeks. But as Johnson shows, the writing of the book on the typescroll obscures the many failed starts and revisions over several years that proceeded and helped form the book in its final version. Johnson finds that Kerouac's writing finds "its fullest expression, in "Visions of Cody" the sequel to "On the Road" that he began shortly after its completion. She writes: "With 'Visions of Cody', Jack would make his own singular contribution to the great stream-of-consciousness experiments of twentieth-century literature."Johnson focuses on Kerouac's ambivalences and divided nature which she calls "dualities". She pays great attention to the French-Canadian community in Quebec. Many French-Canadians moved to New England in search of better lives, including Kerouac's parents. His early life in Lowell, Massachussetts was embedded in French-Canadian culture, so much so that Johnson describes Kerouac as an American outsider, a status critical towards understanding his work. Johnson also describes a Kerouac split from childhood between his intellectual, reclusive nature on the one hand and his frenetic need for acceptance and companionship on the other hand. Some of this is shown by his prowess at football and sports as a young man. His relationship to his friends and to women also show Kerouac's need to be loved and accepted. Kerouac's French-Canadian background and the conflicting pulls in his character are emphasized throughout as Johnson explores his writing. Johnson also discusses insightfully the importance to Kerouac of the death of his older brother Gerard, nine, when Kerouac was four, and the domineering influence of Kerouac's mother throughout his life.The book is filled with detail about Kerouac's early life in Lowell, his year at Horace Mann, his attendance at Columbia, his service in the merchant marine, his wanderings, serious brushes with the law, and increasing dependence on alcohol and drugs. Johnson emphasizes his childhood friends, his many relationships with women, most of which were passing and sad, and his two wives. The book draws with a novelistic eye a portrayal of New York City in the post - WW II years and of the people that became part of Kerouac's circle, including Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, William Burroughs, and John Clellon Holmes. Johnson discounts the importance of the "Beat" movement or the role imputed to Kerouac as "King of the Beats." The movement such as it was has played out before Kerouac became notorious. In any event, Kerouac's writings remain alive and of importance while the Beat movement has long since faded.Johnson's painstaking exposition of Kerouac's writing, including his letters, drafts, and manuscripts constitute the most insightful portion of her portrayal of Kerouac. She describes the many early versions of works such as "On the Road", "The Town and the City" and "Dr. Sax" together with manuscripts, some of which, such as "The Sea is my Brother" have been published. Other manuscripts, including a work Kerouac began in French, remain largely unknown. The discussion of the published books and of Kerouac's drafts and writing gave me a valuable perspective on his work. Johnson also describes well Kerouac's extensive reading, and the changes in the writers and the styles that came to influence him over time.There may be small factual or chronological errors in this biography, but Johnson draws Kerouac from the inside. Her book increased my understanding of a writer I have thought about for many years. Johnson portrays a flawed individual's devotion to his art and the toll this devotion exacted.Robin Friedman