JACK KEROUAC: A Biography Michael J. Dittman GREENWOOD PRESS JACK KEROUAC Recent Titles in Greenwood Biographies The Dalai Lama: A Biography Patricia Cronin Marcello Margaret Mead: A Biography Mary Bowman-Kruhm J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography Leslie Ellen Jones Colin Powell: A Biography Richard Steins Pope John Paul II: A Biography Meg Greene Malvasi Al Capone: A Biography Luciano Iorizzo George S. Patton: A Biography David A. Smith Gloria Steinem: A Biography Patricia Cronin Marcello Billy Graham: A Biography Roger Bruns Emily Dickinson: A Biography Connie Ann Kirk Langston Hughes: A Biography Laurie F. Leach Fidel Castro: A Biography Thomas M. Leonard Oprah Winfrey: A Biography Helen S. Garson Mark Twain: A Biography Connie Ann Kirk JACK KEROUAC A Biography Michael J. Dittman GREENWOOD BIOGRAPHIES GREENWOOD PRESS WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT . LONDON Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dittman, Michael J. Jack Kerouac : a biography / Michael J. Dittman. p. cm. — (Greenwood biographies, ISSN 1540–4900) Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 0–313–32836–6 (alk. paper) 1. Kerouac, Jack, 1922–1969. 2. Authors, American— 20th century—Biography. 3. Beat generation—Biography. I. Title. II. Series. PS3521.E735Z628 2004 813'.54—dc22 2004009233 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2004 by Michael J. Dittman All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004009233 ISBN: 0–313–32836–6 ISSN: 1540–4900 First published in 2004 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10987654321 CONTENTS Series Foreword vii Introduction ix Timeline of Events in the Life of Jack Kerouac xi Chapter 1 Youth 1 Chapter 2 Horace Mann and Columbia 11 Chapter 3 On the Sea and on the Road 15 Chapter 4 Bebop and Benzedrine 23 Chapter 5 The Town and the City 27 Chapter 6 Neal Cassady 31 Chapter 7 The Railroad 47 Chapter 8 The Subterraneans and Spontaneous Prose 55 Chapter 9 Mexico City 63 Chapter 10 The West Coast Revolution 67 Chapter 11 Africa 73 Chapter 12 Fame 77 Chapter 13 The Beatnik Backlash 89 Chapter 14 Decline 97 Chapter 15 Death 111 vi CONTENTS Chapter 16 Legacy 121 Selected Bibliography 127 Index 131 Photo essay follows page 62 SERIES FOREWORD In response to high school and public library needs, Greenwood devel- oped this distinguished series of full-length biographies specifically for stu- dent use. Prepared by field experts and professionals, these engaging biographies are tailored for high school students who need challenging yet accessible biographies. Ideal for secondary school assignments, the length, format and subject areas are designed to meet educators’ requirements and students’ interests. Greenwood offers an extensive selection of biographies spanning all curriculum related subject areas including social studies, the sciences, lit- erature and the arts, history and politics, as well as popular culture, cover- ing public figures and famous personalities from all time periods and backgrounds, both historic and contemporary, who have made an impact on American and/or world culture. Greenwood biographies were chosen based on comprehensive feedback from librarians and educators. Consid- eration was given to both curriculum relevance and inherent interest. The result is an intriguing mix of the well known and the unexpected, the saints and sinners from long-ago history and contemporary pop culture. Readers will find a wide array of subject choices from fascinating crime fig- ures like Al Capone to inspiring pioneers like Margaret Mead, from the greatest minds of our time like Stephen Hawking to the most amazing suc- cess stories of our day like J.K. Rowling. While the emphasis is on fact, not glorification, the books are meant to be fun to read. Each volume provides in-depth information about the sub- ject’s life from birth through childhood, the teen years, and adulthood. A viii SERIES FOREWORD thorough account relates family background and education, traces per- sonal and professional influences, and explores struggles, accomplish- ments, and contributions. A timeline highlights the most significant life events against a historical perspective. Bibliographies supplement the ref- erence value of each volume. INTRODUCTION When Jack Kerouac, being examined by a navy psychiatrist, was asked to explain what the doctor had termed Kerouac’s bizarre behavior, he re- sponded happily that he was committed to “dedicating my actions to ex- perience in order to write about them, sacrificing myself on the altar of Art.” Sacrifice himself he did, from the year he was born to French Cana- dian immigrants in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1922, until he died, bitter, angry, and alcoholic, on October 21, 1969, in Saint Petersburg, Florida. As a youth, Kerouac was not only highly intelligent but also physically gifted, earning a football scholarship to Columbia University. After his freshman year, Kerouac dropped out of Columbia, signing up for a hitch with the U.S. Merchant Marine, then attempting to join the navy. After finding that navy discipline was too much for him, he claimed insanity and took therapy sessions with the aforementioned psychiatrist, earning an honorable discharge for “indifferent character.” He then headed back to New York City, where he met the people who star in On the Road: Allen Ginsberg as Carlo Marx, William S. Burroughs as Old Bull Lee, and, per- haps most important, a 20-year-old ex-con named Neal Cassady, who would appear in the book as Dean Moriarty. Inspired by this group, Kerouac offered his sacrifice on the altar of art in the form of forsaking middle-class America for a life of varied experi- ence, turning his life into roman à clef fictions. In all his books, but most famously in On the Road, Kerouac preferred not to characterize his work as fiction, or striving to create invented experiences. Instead he said that he was creating his text by letting his imagination embellish remembered x INTRODUCTION events. On the Road was first deemed unpublishable, not only because of its reliance on a writing style Kerouac called “spontaneous prose” and the reluctance of some of the individuals who appeared in the book to sign libel waivers, but also because of the narrator Sal’s empathy and longing for the life of the downtrodden and disenfranchised. Kerouac felt that the ancestor of the white hipster of the 1950s was the African American jazzman, or African American culture more generally, and, to some ex- tent, that of other minority races. Six years passed before the book was published, and its publication marked the beginning of the end of a normal life for Kerouac. In the late 1940s, the term “Beat” acquired a glamour, and pseudobeatniks were slated to appear in movies and on TV, all claiming Kerouac as their spiri- tual father. These caricatures, though, misrepresented what Kerouac felt was meant by the term “Beat,” a word that he always linked to the word “beatific,” or sanctified. Always a shy man, he found that he could not ex- plain himself to reporters. He clashed with fans who showed up at his house to party all night, looking for Salvatore Paradise and Dean Mori- arty. As an escape, Kerouac turned increasingly to bottles of Johnny Walker Red, confessing to his friend and fellow Beat writer John Clellon Holmes, “I can’t stand to meet anybody anymore. They talk to me like I wasn’t me.”1 Kerouac’s nomadic lifestyle continued all his life as he sought peace and satisfaction. He and his mother moved repeatedly. He married three times, fathering a number of children. With each move, his alcoholism worsened, and although his desperate efforts to dry out in California are recorded in his novel Big Sur, he could not break free from his addiction. He died, from a stomach hemorrhage, in the Florida home that he and his mother shared. It was a night in October, in the fall, a time that Sal Par- adise, Kerouac’s alter ego in On the Road, said always made him feel like moving somewhere new. NOTE 1. “Jack Kerouac.” Contemporary Authors. Vol. 54 (Chicago: Gale/Thompson, 2004), p. 241. TIMELINE OF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF JACK KEROUAC 1922 Jack Kerouac is born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on March 12. 1939 He graduates from Lowell High School. 1941 In New York, he attends Columbia College on a football scholar- ship. 1944 Kerouac meets Lucien Carr, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Bur- roughs. 1945 He begins writing The Town and the City and meets Neal Cassady for the first time in New York. 1946 Kerouac collaborates with William Burroughs on And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks. 1947 He travels to Denver, California, and back to New York. 1949 He travels with Cassady to Louisiana and San Francisco and briefly lives in Colorado. He returns with Cassady to New York. 1950 Kerouac’s road trips inspire him to begin working on the earliest version of On the Road. The Town and the City is published, and Kerouac once again travels to Denver. In Denver, he meets up with Cassady, and together they take a trip to Mexico. 1951 Kerouac begins the third version of On the Road, typing the draft on a single roll of paper in three weeks. He discovers “spontaneous prose” and begins to rewrite On the Road. He lives at Neal Cas- sady’s home in San Francisco. 1952 Kerouac writes Dr.