1922-1969
Beat Novelist

The Right Time.

Jack Kerouac was a writer who earned his place in cultural history because of timing more than literary merit. In his books, most notably On the Road (1957), he expresses the spirit of the 1950s for an audience aimlessly seeking a suitable mode of expression. Kerouac's depiction of a band of free spirits discovering themselves as they improvised their way across America in what was intended to be a real-life analogue to a jazz-ensemble improvisation struck a chord with young iconoclastic readers. Kerouac became a representative figure, the king of the Beats.

Background.

When his father died in 1948, Kerouac's future looked dismal. He had done nothing so consistently as fail. He had attended Columbia University between 1940 and 1942 and hoped to play football, but, because of an injury and a characteristic lack of resolve, he quit the team. Academically he did no...