Born March 12, 1922 Jack Kerouac was an artistic renaissance man, as an American author, poet and painter. Along with William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac is considered one f the pioneers of the Beat Generation. Today, many years after his 1969 death Kerouac is thought of as an important and influential writer, however, while his work was very popular with a certain culture during his lifetime, he received very little critical acclaim.
Amazingly this great American writer didn’t even learn the English language until he was 6 years old. It has been discovered that Jack Kerouac actually began writing his novel “On the Road” in French, as well as much of his poetry.
Jack Kerouac lived an adventure filled life, from cross country road trips to disposing of murder evidence he always stood by his convictions and made the choices that appealed to his sense of fairness. After his arrest as a material witness in the murder case, Jack married Edie Parker in return for her paying his bail. One year later that marriage was annulled. So while convictions and fairness came into play in his life, Jack Kerouac was also willing to do whatever needed to be done in order to get where he wanted to be.
Jack Kerouac had many careers. He spent time as a sports reporter, construction worker, US Merchant Marine, and joined the US Navy two times. One thing that never changed, no matter what job he was working at, Jack always wrote. He carried a notebook with him everywhere he went. One can only conclude that the great American novels that he produced were due to this habitual jotting of thoughts, for while Kerouac wrote spontaneous prose and mainly lacking edits, his novels were primarily based upon events from his life and people that he encountered.
After many revisions and edits his work was deemed publishable, but in the original free thought flowing style Jack Kerouac created “The Subterraneans” and “Visions of Cody” which remain in the free flowing spontaneous style that Kerouac was known for.
Like so many great artists Jack Kerouac died at the early age of 47 due to complications of alcohol abuse.
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