Just like Lawrence Ferlinghetti taught us it was possible to write accessible poems that question our world and illuminate people we see in everyday life, Jack Kerouac cracked open the novel. On the Road is a romp through an America few experience in its entirety. A land of struggle and enlightenment if you know where to look.
This glimpse of Kerouac reading from On the Road with Steve Allen on piano is a revelation in itself.
My sixties road novel Lucky Ride is inspired in part by Jack Kerouac. Think of what might happen if Kerouac had been a Vietnam Era veteran who imagined himself starting out on Ken Kesey’s bus and then striking out on his own.
