Weekend Recommendation #7

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac changed my life. I think I had read the majority of his books by the time I was 25. The only other authors I could say that about might be Henry Miller and Ernest Hemingway, but those two in future weekend recommendations.

“On the Road” was the first book of Kerouac’s that I read and it was like a lightening bolt. I was one of many as this book changed the cultural trajectory of America when it was published in 1958.

The Beats deeply affected culture and popular culture. They were the precursors to the hippies. They introduced Buddhism to America, revered jazz, cars, speed, hair, marijuana, and exotic places to hang out and create.

“On the Road” was written in three weeks in a New York hotel room on rolls of teletype paper threaded through a manual typewriter. Kerouac fueled this process with cheap wine and Benzedrine and explained he was writing prose as jazz.

“On the Road” is the single most impactful book that he wrote.

My favorite book of Kerouac’s was “The Dharma Bums” I think I have read it three times.

I would also recommend both “Desolation Angels” and “The Subterraneans”