{"product_id":"come-and-join-the-dance-paperback","title":"Come and Join the Dance - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJoyce Johnson\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe daring debut of the Beat Generation's first woman novelist\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt's 1955. Seven days before her graduation from Barnard College, Susan Levitt asks herself, \"What if you lived your entire life without urgency?\" just before going out to make things happen to her that will shatter the mask of conformity concealing her feelings of alienation. If Susan continues to be \"good,\" marriage and security await her. But her hunger is rising for the self-discovery that comes from existential freedom. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAfter breaking up with the Columbia boy she knows she could marry, Susan seeks out those she considers \"outlaws\" the brave and fragile Kay, who has moved into a rundown hotel, in order to \"see more than fifty percent when I walk down the street\"; the vulnerable adolescent rebel Anthony; and Peter, the restless hipster graduate student who has become the object of Kay's unrequited devotion. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis fascinating novel--which the author began writing a year before her encounter with Jack Kerouac--is a young woman's complex response to the liberating messages of the Beat Generation. In a subversive feminist move, Johnson gives her heroine all the freedom the male Beat writers reserved for men to travel her own road. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eJoyce Johnson was born in 1935 in New York City, the setting for all her fiction: \u003ci\u003eCome and Join the Dance\u003c\/i\u003e, recognized as the first Beat novel by a woman writer, \u003ci\u003eBad Connections\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eIn the Night Café\u003c\/i\u003e. She is best known for her memoir \u003ci\u003eMinor Characters\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1983 and dealt with coming of age in the 1950s and with her involvement with Jack Kerouac. She has published two other Beat-related books: \u003ci\u003eDoor Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac\u003c\/i\u003e. She has also written a second memoir, \u003ci\u003eMissing Men, \u003c\/i\u003eand the nonfiction title \u003ci\u003eWhat Lisa Knew: The Truths and Lies of the Steinberg Case\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 186\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.43 x 8 x 5.25 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e June 17, 2014\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42693352226879,"sku":"9781480481336","price":20.39,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0105\/8226\/1823\/files\/cafc27580f0efa1518a9c2bdb43590fc.webp?v=1764998650","url":"https:\/\/dhlswag.com\/products\/come-and-join-the-dance-paperback","provider":"BBB","version":"1.0","type":"link"}