Jami Cassady as a young ballerina. Portrait by Carolyn Cassady.
JAMI CASSADY RATTO (b. January 26, 1950) passed on Jan 16, 2026, after a brief illness. “This has been a tough loss,” says her sister, Cathy Cassady Sylvia, adding, “I still can’t believe she’s gone.” “She had the kindest soul, touching the lives of everyone she met, and her warmth and love will be deeply missed,” says Jami and Randy’s daughter, Becky Locatelli. “She left 3 wonderful grandchildren. They were her whole world.”
Jami’s late father, Neal Cassady inspired the Beat Generation into existence after meeting Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and others at Columbia University in 1947 and amazing them all with his exuberance. Following the heyday of that movement, Neal went on to drive the bus for Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters in 1964. Her late mother, Carolyn Robinson Cassady—who studied theater arts and set design at Denver University—wrote a memoir, Off the Road that was first published in 1991 (a previous version entitled Heartbeat was privately published, resulting in the film adaptation starring Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek).
The last time I saw Jami and Randy, both in their 70s, was in Oakland, California during a trip I took about a year ago. Books by both of Jami’s parents had been published by various imprints including City Lights for which they’d never received payment, despite ownership of the copyright. The couple was researching, expanding and improving these manuscripts and periodically sounding out publishers, so far without any luck. Says Hyatt, “Two of the things Jami did that was so important was to provide information to social media and other platforms about her father. Also, Jami and her husband Randy kept the Cassady Estate website current with historical and new information about Neal Cassady and the Cassady family.”
Carolyn Cassady
While I was there, they were also hosting a month long exhibition of Carolyn’s paintings (including renditions of Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Kerouac) at the Grand Gallery down the street. Jami gave me and my sister and godfather a tour of the show and introduced us to the owner.
The two came along to my audience with underground publisher V. Vale (RE/Search Publications) in North Beach and he wished us luck in our mission to find the best home for these classics before reading goes entirely out of style. I was hoping he’d offer to publish them but you can’t always get what you want.
“There’s Natalie Jackson’s fire escape,” Jami pointed out when we were back in the warm sunlight outside. (Jackson—”Rosie Buchanan” in Kerouac’s Dharma Bums—died at 24 after jumping off the same building’s roof).
I said something about ‘these crooked, crowded, tilted streets’ and Randy said, “How’d you like to drive up that street in a car full of people backwards at 2 AM like Neal?”
“Did he do that?”
Jami had all the same behavioral quirks and conversational mannerisms hallowed by Kerouac as signals of her father’s Protean greatness, going into unexpected facial expressions and gestures with her hands when she talks. She attributes these tics to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, a diagnosis unknown during Neal’s lifetime. I think it would make a very interesting documentary, the way this guy with OCD was basically hijacked (albeit with good intentions) by the closeted Kerouac as his “fully emerged” muse, then driven to ever-greater heights of madness by the resulting popularity.
Neal spent most of his childhood and teen years in Denver, growing up the son of a wino barber on Larimer Street when it was a skid row consisting mostly of pool halls and flophouses and quickly developing into a prodigious car-thief. He was a lifelong user of stimulants, and now that we know certain forms of those can normalize hyperactive minds, this can be seen as him self-medicating instinctively. Jack made him famous as frenetic con-man Dean Moriarty in On the Road, which Neal both loved and hated. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest author and cultural provocateur Ken Kesey did the same thing after Neal’s marriage with Carolyn failed in 1963, when Neal went on to drive the bus for the Merry Pranksters.
He was raised a Catholic, which doctrine was later augmented by adherence to the dictates of ‘Sleeping Prophet’ Edgar Cayce, which pervaded his experience with religious significance.
Jami saw her father’s time with the Pranksters as a deliberate surrender to his own dysfunction, a state characterized by self-destructive behavior, repetition, compulsion, and aggression toward himself redirected outward. A huge part of Jami and Randy’s mission was to reframe Neal’s confused story in the public eye. He complained in his later years of feeling like a “trained bear,” and ultimately burned himself out on speed and other substances going after that pleasure button. She was kind enough to book me a room at an inn down the street from the train station on my last night in town. When I checked in, someone female was screaming an endless monologue off in the motel somewhere while a male voice kept saying, “Pick it UP,” and another couple argued in the hallway. It died out after a few hours. Basic comfort, w/ a TV, bed and shower made the early departure much easier, despite the train horns outside every hour or so. I got about three hours of sleep that night.
Jami and Randy arranged publication of Neal’s mysterious, infamous Joan Anderson Letter—praised by Jack as “the greatest piece of writing I ever saw”—with an English press called Eyewear Publishing in 2020. “It will be a difficult task to find someone to do this important work as well as Jami.” says Bob Hyatt. What will happen to the remaining unpublished and out-of-print manuscripts by Neal and Carolyn Cassady? Does City Lights care anymore? As I understand it the Cassady Estate (website designed created and maintained by Cathy’s husband, George Sylvia) retains ownership of the copyright. In more publication news, Cathy Cassady Sylvia has been working with artist Rick Bleier on a graphic novel adaptation of Neal’s writing about his childhood in The First Third to be released in 2027. “I have all kinds of theories about why Dad behaved the way he did based on his genetic makeup and the violence, abuse and neglect he experienced does a child. Those thoughts are revealed in our upcoming book.”
One of Jami’s last Facebook posts now seems premonitory: “3I/ATLAS WOW!!!!! HOPEFULLY WE’LL STILL BE AROUND…….”
Now that she’s made her transition, I count her among the guardian angels I’ve made in my life.
“The outpouring of support from all corners of the globe will never be forgotten,” says Becky Locatelli. “As we navigate this deep grief and heartache, we also want to let you know that my dad is now alone and could really use your support and kindness.”
Interested parties can contact Randy Ratto via this email: Theranch76@gmail.com.
Jami Cassady smiles.
