Writer Carolyn Cassady of Beat Generation Dies A longtime friend of Carolyn Cassady has confirmed the writer who was the former wife of Beatnik Neal Cassady and lover of Jack Kerouac has died. She was 90 years old. Estelle Cimino, co-owner of the Beat Museum in San Francisco, said Saturday that Carolyn Cassady died Friday in the United Kingdom. Cimino and her husband are longtime family friends of Cassady and her children. She didn't know the specific cause of death. Cassady's proximity to the Beat generation was chronicled in Kerouac's book "On the Road." Married to Neal Cassady for more than 20 years, she was also a close friend of Beat generation poet Allen Ginsberg. She chronicled her experiences in the memoir "Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac and Ginsberg," published in 1990.