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Did you know………

……. Jack Kerouac typed up his novel On the Road on one continuous roll of paper that was 120 feet long. Kerouac called it ‘the scroll’ – a stream of tracing paper that Kerouac had created through taping individual sheets together. The book became a key text for the Beat Generation: the ‘Beatnik Bible’. 

……. According to Jack Kerouac, the ‘Beat’ in ‘Beat Generation’ is actually derived from the word ‘beatitude’, meaning ‘blessedness’. With Burroughs, and poet Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac is regarded as one of the trio of writers who helped define the Beat Generation.

………. Kerouac is generally considered to be the father of the Beat movement, although he actively disliked such labels. Kerouac's method was heavily influenced by the prolific explosion of Jazz, especially the Bebop genre established by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and others. Later, Kerouac included ideas he developed from his Buddhist studies. He often referred to his style as "spontaneous prose".

Although Kerouac’s prose was spontaneous and purportedly without edits, he primarily wrote autobiographical novels (or Roman à clef) based upon actual events from his life and the people with whom he interacted.

He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his method of spontaneous prose.

Thematically, his work covers topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. He became an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements.

Although he wrote the original manuscript quickly, in just three weeks in 1951, Kerouac then spent time revising bits of the text before it was finally published six years later. Kerouac’s friends William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg both appear in the novel, as the characters Old Bull Lee and Carlo Marx respectively.

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