The Oxford Companion to English Literature | 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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