With the glut of books that thankfully made our way in the past 20 years or so, we now have (probably) just as many posthumous titles as those Kerouac published in his lifetime. These have added … [Read more...]
Remembering Poet Kirby Doyle
Kirby Doyle & the Snows of Yesteryear by Michael McClure In 1958 Kirby Doyle's menage on Sacramento Street, in a basement apartment of the no-man's land between the wealthy on the Hill and the … [Read more...]
Earwitness Testimony: Sound and Sense, Word and Void in Jack Kerouac’s Old Angel Midnight
“the ineluctable modality of the audible” – James Joyce Ulysses So much of Jack Kerouac’s writing seems impelled by an impatience with all verbal restraints and by an urgent purpose that strains … [Read more...]
Who was Neal Cassady?
Neal Cassady: a brief biographical sketch Born on February 8, 1926, Neal Cassady grew up in Denver, Colorado. He was the son of a barber who moved the family from cheap hotel to cheap hotel. As a … [Read more...]
We Are Jack Kerouac
Though not in the sense we were born in Lowell Mass or beat it out of there to get famous, though we gassed up and burned rubber in Lowell Mass and in other states and cities we hitched … [Read more...]
The Official Kerouac “On the Road” Movie Trailer is Here!
"On the Road," the movie based on Jack Kerouac's novel of the same name, will be released in the United States on December 21, 2012. Produced by Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope, it's directed … [Read more...]
“The Old Maestro”: an interview with Kerouac friend Henri Cru by Dave Moore
Henri Cru was one of the friends that Jack Kerouac met at Horace Mann School, New York, in 1939. Their friendship sustained for many years, and Cru featured as a character in several of Kerouac's … [Read more...]
La Picaudiere — and Hundertwasser’s Honey
Asked in an interview what he would remember most about his life as an artist, Man Ray replied "the women." I was a bee whisperer, like Edmund Hillary who climbed Mount Everest and who was a beekeeper … [Read more...]
Kerouac — “My really best friend…” an interview with Seymour Wyse by Dave Moore
Seymour Michael Wyse was one of Jack Kerouac's closest friends. An Englishman, educated at Charterhouse School, Wyse met Kerouac when they both attended Horace Mann School, New York, in 1939. They … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac’s Last Night in Northport
Beat Scene Press will soon be publishing JACK KEROUAC'S LAST NIGHT IN NORTHPORT by Pat Fenton. An edition of 125 numbered copies. No 36 in the Beat Scene series. It is £7.95. Also check out the … [Read more...]
The Sea is My Brother by Jack Kerouac, Reviewed by Jack Leaf Willetts
The Sea is My Brother was Jack Kerouac's first attempt at a novel. Technically it fits the criteria of a novella, the original manuscript weighing in at 158 pages. Published for the first time in its … [Read more...]
Heeding the Call of the Open Road
Beat culture and hippie culture were both long gone as a central movement by the time I was growing up, but hop on the bandwagon I did. As a teenager, there was nothing I wanted more than to get the … [Read more...]
Beat Generation Photos by Rob Lee
[Editor's note: These photos are small! This page was first created many years ago for smaller screens. I have larger photos somewhere and will update this page as soon as possible.] Shig … [Read more...]
Kerouac and the Outsider – A Puzzle
It was Horst who started it. Horst Spandler had been translating the 1971 Kerouac anthology Scattered Poems into German. Along the way he'd been asking others their advice on the meaning of parts of … [Read more...]
Book Review – The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder
When someone comes up with a fresh and startling way of looking at our world, you can bet that it is drawn from a combination of sources, fields, and disciplines. Gary Snyder has done just this with … [Read more...]
The Rebirth of the Author in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road
"Time stops. He's filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. He has to blow across bridges and come … [Read more...]
Book Review – Baby Driver by Jan Kerouac
While I was being gifted a tiny grocery store carrot cake for my fifteenth birthday in a park in Connecticut, still on the road myself, Jan Kerouac passed away. It was June 5, 1996. I had no idea who … [Read more...]
Jack Kerouac’s Books
This is a listing of Jack Kerouac's books, arranged by their date of publication. We've also noted the date(s) when the book was written. If the book covers a particular period of time, we've noted … [Read more...]
Blowing: Poetry Meets Music in the Writing of the Beat Generation
PROCEDURE: Time being of the essence in the purity of speech, sketching language is undisturbed flow from the mind of personal secret idea-words, blowing (as per jazz musician) on subject of … [Read more...]
Juxtaposition of Wor[l]ds: The Cultural and Literary Legacy of the Beat Generation
“What’s your road, man?–holyboy road, madman road, rainbow road, guppy road, any road. It’s an anywhere road for anybody anyhow.” –Jack Kerouac (1957), quoted from On the Road “Despite the … [Read more...]