was the author of her memoir, "You`ll Be Okay" from the Beat Generation, and the first wife of Jack Kerouac. She and Joan Vollmer shared an apartment on 118th Street in New York City, frequented by many Beats, among them Vollmer`s eventual husband William S. Burroughs.

Parker was a native of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. She and Kerouac married in 1944. At the time, he was in jail as an accessory after the fact in Lucien Carr`s murder of David Kammerer. This event expedited their intention to marry so that Edie could access an inheritance from her grandfather`s then unprobated estate to post Kerouac`s bail. The marriage was annulled in 1945.

She is represented as "Judie Smith" in Kerouac`s novel The Town and the City and is a prominent figure in Kerouac`s classic, On The Road.