Introduction
But all the crazy things that were going to happen began then. It would
mix up all my friends, and all I had left of my family, in a big dust cloud
over the American Night.
Love, jazz, and wild times are all part of Sal Paradise's adventures
in On the Road, the story of his travels across the United States
with his strange friend Dean Moriarty, "the perfect guy for the
road," and their crazy companions. Around the late 1940s it was
common for rich people who wanted their cars to be driven
long distances to look for drivers. These were people who were
going to the same destination but did not have the money for
plane, bus, or train tickets. The drivers then found passengers to
share the cost of the gas. This gave a lot of young people, like Sal
and Dean, the opportunity to travel.
Jack Kerouac was born in the north-east of the United States in
1922 and died in 1969 at the age of 47. He wrote his first novel
at eleven and at seventeen he decided to become a writer. A year
later he began traveling after reading about the life of Jack
London, another famous North American who wrote about life
in the great outdoors.
During his short life, Kerouac produced many novels, plays,
and books of poetry. However, he is best known for his road
novels of the fifties and sixties. On the Road (1957) is the most
famous of these. Other works include The Subterraneans (1958),
The Dharma Bums (1958), Doctor Sax (1959), and Big Sur (1962).
A number of real people lie behind the characters in On the
Road. The fictional Dean Moriarty is Kerouac's real-life traveling
companion, Neal Cassady; the poet Allen Ginsberg appears as
Carlo Marx; and the writer William Burroughs is Old Bull Lee.