Kerouac, Jack
Kerouac, Jack ( 1922 – 69 ),American novelist, born in Massachusetts of French Canadian parents, and educated at Columbia University. His first novel, The Town and the City ( 1950 ), was written under the influence of Thomas Wolfe and it was only with On the Road ( 1957 ) that he constructed his image as the hip-flask swinging hobo. Thinly disguising himself as Sal Paradise, he describes his cross-county excursions with his friend Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty in the book). Written in a three-week frenzy, the novel is a hymn to the freedom of American geography—its promises and possibilities, its unique wonder at itself. Much to Kerouac's irritation, the work would be heralded as the forerunner of the counter-culture, whereas he saw it as reclaiming the rugged individualism of the 19th cent. Further books (The Subterraneans, 1958 ; The Dharma Bums, 1958 ) continued in this autobiographical...
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