Such a job gives a woman a sense of freedom. Through her, readers are shown what it was really like, in the 1950s, to have an interracial marriage, to be white skinned and have kids of color, how it was to be a single mother, to both love your kids but at the same time yearn for a job that fulfills one’s own interests. The book draws the Beat Generation through the lens of Hettie’s life. This after a little less than seven years of marriage. A nanny is employed, but when LeRoi fathers a daughter with poet Diane DiPrima, Hettie and LeRoi divorce. Readers are not subjected to screaming battles, but social standards being what they were in the 50s if she wanted a job it was up to her to make it work. Then, of course, arises the question of who should do what? Who will mind the kids? Their marriage begins to fall apart.

Soon after, follow two kids-Kellie born in 1959 and Lisa in 1961. It promoted the authors of the Beat scene. In 1957, they together start the literary magazine Yugen. Both are caught up in the poetry, arts and music scene. This doesn’t matter they love each other. There she met her to-be husband, LeRoi Jones, employed as the magazine’s shipping manager. When the funding there dried up, she took on a job at the Record Changer, a magazine published for record collectors.

Later she continued her studies at Columbia University, with a side job at a foundation to make ends meet. She turned down Vassar and chose instead to study at Mary Washington, an all-girls college in Virginia. Let me backtrack-born Hettie Cohen in 1934, in Brooklyn, New York, Hettie was of Jewish descent. Through Hettie’s life we view the Beat scene.

They were into jazz, wrote poetry and strove to get their writings published and known. Together, they partied, smoked grass, took drugs and exchanged views and partners. She writes of her life, on the periphery of their lives. She rubbed shoulders with many of the Beat Generation living here, those mentioned above and many more. The autobiographical piece here is about Hettie’s younger years in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, living in Manhattan-Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Cooper Square on the Lower East Side. Having recently enjoyed the writing of Joyce Johnson, next up to try was this- How I Became Hettie Jones by Hettie Jones.

Well, what about the women of the group?! I wanted to check them out too. Everybody knows of the male poets and authors of the Beat Generation, those such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Joel Oppenheimer, Frank O'Hara and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

How i became hettie jones