33 Facts About Lucien Carr

Lucien Carr was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s he was convicted for manslaughter.

Lucien Carr later worked for many years as an editor for United Press International.

Whether the attentions of a man fourteen years his senior were frightening or flattering to the underage Lucien Carr is a matter of some debate among those who chronicle the history of the Beat Generation.

Lucien Carr explained away this act as a "work of art," but the apparent suicide attempt, which Carr's family believed was catalyzed by Kammerer, led to a two-week stay in the psychiatric ward at Cook County hospital.

Lucien Carr soon quit his job and followed Carr to New York and started working as a janitor, moving into an apartment on Morton Street in the West Village, one block from William Burroughs' residence; the two older men remained friends.

Lucien Carr developed what he called the "New Vision," a thesis recycled from Emersonian transcendentalism and Parisian Bohemianism which helped undergird the Beats' creative rebellion:.

Accounts of this period report that Kammerer's presence and lovelorn devotion to Lucien Carr made many of the other Beats uncomfortable.

Kerouac left first and bumped into Kammerer, who asked where Lucien Carr was; Kerouac told him.

When Lucien Carr rejected it, he said that Kammerer assaulted him physically, and gained the upper hand in the struggle due to his larger size.

In desperation and panic, Lucien Carr said, he stabbed the older man by using a Boy Scout knife from his St Louis childhood.

Lucien Carr then tied his assailant's hands and feet, wrapped Kammerer's belt around his arms, weighted the body with rocks, and dumped it in the nearby Hudson River.

Burroughs flushed the cigarettes down the toilet and told Lucien Carr to get a lawyer and to turn himself in.

Finally, Lucien Carr went to his mother's house and then to the office of the New York District Attorney, where he confessed.

Lucien Carr identified the corpse and led police to where he had buried Kammerer's eyeglasses in Morningside Park.

Lucien Carr pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter, and his mother testified at a sentencing hearing about Kammerer's predatory habits.

Lucien Carr was sentenced to a term of one to twenty years in prison.

Lucien Carr served two years in the Elmira Correctional Facility in Upstate New York and was released.

Lucien Carr's Beat crowd was, for a time, shattered by the killing.

Lucien Carr is portrayed as a young man who is very conflicted by his feelings towards Kammerer and struggles to break ties.

Lucien Carr's letter was a rebuttal to an article by Aaron Latham that had appeared in the magazine.

Lucien Carr had been a student at Barnard College while the Beat Generation was coalescing in the 1940s in New York City.

Lucien Carr said his informal lectures had inspired many of the Beats, particularly Kerouac, whom she accused of ingratitude for never acknowledging his debt to Kammerer.

Lucien Carr discredited what she termed "the Lucien myth," that Carr had been the victim of Kammerer's relentless obsession and stalking.

Healy's letter hinted that Lucien Carr had frequently sought Kammerer's help in writing his Columbia term papers.

Once the story of a predatory homosexual was presented in court, Lucien Carr became a victim and the murder was framed as an honor killing.

Lucien Carr enjoyed his ability to manipulate the older man, and got him to write essays for his classes at New York's Columbia University.

In New York, Lucien Carr gave Ginsberg, who had been raised respectably in New Jersey, where his father was a teacher, a new language of eroticism and danger.

Lucien Carr remained on good terms with his Beat friends, and served as best man when Kerouac impetuously married Joan Haverty in November 1950.

Lucien Carr has sometimes been credited with having provided Kerouac with a roll of teleprinter paper "pilfered" from the UP offices, on which Kerouac then wrote the entire first draft of On the Road in a 20-day marathon fueled by coffee, speed, and marijuana.

In 1956, when Ginsberg's "Howl" and Kerouac's On the Road were about to be national sensations, Lucien Carr was promoted to night news editor.

Lucien Carr continued to serve Kerouac as a drinking buddy, a reader and critic, reviewing early drafts of Kerouac's work and absorbing Kerouac's growing frustrations with the publishing world.

Lucien Carr spent 47 years, his entire professional career, with UPI, and went on to head the general news desk until his retirement in 1993.

Lucien Carr died at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC in January 2005 after a long battle with bone cancer.