"To know that nothing matters at all To know there's no real difference between the rich and the poor To know that eternity is neither drunk nor sober, to know it young and be a poet..." - from "Skid Row Wine" This site is a production of Home Next Previous Search Amazon.com Questions or comments, e-mail the webmaster LiveSite Designs Links to Jack Kerouac Jack Kerouac[charm.net] Jack Kerouac[Bohemian Ink] Blue Neon Alley DHARMA Beat: Kerouac Kerouac Speaks Web Directory: Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac Born Jean-Louis Kerouac on March 12, 1922 in the working class town of Lowell, Massachusetts. The son of French-Canadian parents and the youngest of three siblings, this American author spoke a French dialect called "Joual" before ever uttering a word of English. Jack attended Columbia University on a football scholarship, however, the coach refused him playing time and this, among other things, caused the budding author to drop out of the University. Failure seemed to follow Kerouac from college to the military, who refused him entrance. From there, he opted to join the Merchant Marines and spent his off time wandering New York with the core of what would come to be known as the Beats. This core included William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr and the spontaneous, carefree Neal Cassady. During the early fifties, Jack wandered America after his crowd of friends, writing one unpublished novel after the other and hauling them around in a worn out back pack. It is around these travels that Kerouac's novels are based. Finally, in 1957, On The Road, by far Kerouac's best known novel was published, marking him as a tremendous literary success. But years of rejection had scarred Kerouac and left him bitter towards the public who expected him to become the epitome of young and Beat. After the publication of On The Road Kerouac published many more of his earlier novels, becoming more and more popular. Fame, however, did not sit well with Jack and he found himself in the clutches of alcoholism as he tried to live up to his wild ON THE ROAD image. Literary critics were not taking his writing seriously, adding more pressure to Jack and as the fifties WORKS The Town and the City On The Road Subterraneans Dharma Bums Doctor Sax Maggie Cassidy Mexico City Blues Visions of Cody Scripture of the Golden Ceternity Lonesome Traveler Tristessa Book of Dreams Big Sur Visions of Gerard Desolation Angels Sartori In Paris / Pic Vanity of Duluoz Scattered Poems Book of Blues This is by no means a comprehensive listing of all of Mr. Kerouac's works. Titles available at OTHER AUTHORS Alighieri, Dante Barker, Clive Burroughs, William S. Camus, Albert Card, Orson Scott Dostoevsky, Fyodor Gibran, Kahlil Ginsberg, Allen Huxley, Aldous Kesey, Ken King, Stephen Poe, Edgar Allan Rimbaud, Arthur Salinger, J.D. Shakespeare, William Steinbeck, John Thomas, Dylan Thompson, Jim Tolkien, J.R.R. Vonnegut, Kurt Whitman, Walt Wilde, Oscar Wolfe, Thomas continued, he fell further and further into alcoholic helplessness. In 1969, his health worn and ravaged by his drinking, Jack Kerouac diedin his home in St. Petersburg, Florida. He was 47 years old.