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American novelist and poet Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac
manuscript of Jack Kerouac's On The Road
On The Road
American novelist and poet Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac - or Jack Kerouac - was born on this day in 1922.
Born in Massachusetts to Canadian parents, Jack's older brother Gérard died of rheumatic fever at the age of nine (when Jack was just four). Jack felt he carried his brother as a guardian angel throughout the rest of his life.
A gifted athlete, Kerouac's football career came to an end after an injury. He dropped out of Columbia University and began writing.
Following a three-year long (1947-1950) road trip across the United States and Mexico with fellow writer Neal Cassady, Kerouac penned his second novel - and magnum opus - "On the Road" (1957), describing the travels of "two Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God." The people he met, the experiences he lived, and the general culture he encountered and partook in are central to the plot.
He wrote the final draft in three weeks, taping long strips of tracing paper, to form a 120-foot (36.6m) long roll, which he fed into his typewriter, enabling him to write his "confessional" style story without interruption or punctuation.
Many publishers rejected the manuscript because of Kerouac's experimental and unconventional writing style, and detailed descriptions of drug use and homosexual behavior. Viking Press eventually published the novel six years after it was written.
With the publication of "On the Road", as well as "The Subterraneans", "The Dharma Bums", "Doctor Sax", "Visions of Gerard", and "Big Sur" among others, Kerouac has been praised as one of the great American authors.
Born in Massachusetts to Canadian parents, Jack's older brother Gérard died of rheumatic fever at the age of nine (when Jack was just four). Jack felt he carried his brother as a guardian angel throughout the rest of his life.
A gifted athlete, Kerouac's football career came to an end after an injury. He dropped out of Columbia University and began writing.
Following a three-year long (1947-1950) road trip across the United States and Mexico with fellow writer Neal Cassady, Kerouac penned his second novel - and magnum opus - "On the Road" (1957), describing the travels of "two Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God." The people he met, the experiences he lived, and the general culture he encountered and partook in are central to the plot.
He wrote the final draft in three weeks, taping long strips of tracing paper, to form a 120-foot (36.6m) long roll, which he fed into his typewriter, enabling him to write his "confessional" style story without interruption or punctuation.
Many publishers rejected the manuscript because of Kerouac's experimental and unconventional writing style, and detailed descriptions of drug use and homosexual behavior. Viking Press eventually published the novel six years after it was written.
With the publication of "On the Road", as well as "The Subterraneans", "The Dharma Bums", "Doctor Sax", "Visions of Gerard", and "Big Sur" among others, Kerouac has been praised as one of the great American authors.
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
March 11
David Lamy
Photo credit: David Lamy, Paris (@davidzefriend) / Exhibition: Beat Generation, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.
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