Happy Birthday “On the Road!”
Today is the anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Kerouac originally wrote the thing over 20 days, no punctuation or paragraph breaks, on a giant continuous scroll of paper. Didn’t sleep much and listened to a lot of jazz while typing. Less romantic was the two handfuls of rejections the scroll received from publishers. Kerouac spent the next few years revising, adding commas and line breaks before being published on this day in 1957. It still sells about 100,000 copies a year, mostly to self-righteous teenagers, as I was.
I had my requisite 14 month love-affair with Kerouac and his traveling companion Neal Cassady. I too at the time thought the solution to restlessness of self and distrust of one’s country was to hit the road and live fully over every inch of its hide–mottled, flat, amber waved and coursing with rivers of blood. I’ve grown up since but still have a dream of driving across country, perhaps not to understand myself but where I am from, to feel not special but grateful for this country for making me who I am and humble amongst its hills for the inherent challenge that presents.
And before that maybe I need another read of On the Road, to remember how "hitting the road" and finding America became a possibility at all.
(via The Writers Almanac)
- Book Forum recently had a great piece about the the 50th anniversary of On The Road.
- When in San Francisco, a visit to City Lights Bookstore and to the Beat Museum 1 block away are a must. Both are in the North Beach part of town, where Kerouac and company used to hang out.