Jack Kerouac Beat Novels

About Kerouac

Jack Kerouac is the central novelist of the Beat Generation, a loose literary movement of the 1950s and early 1960s that rejected postwar conformity and sought liberation in jazz, drugs, Buddhism, and motion. On the Road (1957) — written on a 120-foot teletype scroll and drawn from his actual cross-country journeys with Neal Cassady — became one of the most influential American novels of the century. The Dharma Bums (1958) followed, drawing on his friendship with Gary Snyder; Big Sur (1962) served as the movement's dark aftermath. Kerouac's 'spontaneous prose' style, modeled on bebop improvisation, sought to transcribe thought as it moved rather than as it was composed, and his influence on American literature, music, and countercultural writing is incalculable.