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Jack Kerouac's American Journey: The Real-Life Odyssey of On the Road
by
Paul Maher
From one of today's top Kerouac scholars comes a riveting, behind-the-scenes look at the true adventures that spawned one of the greatest American novels of all time, as well as the real lives of the key characters of the novel—Sal Paradise, Dean Moriarty, Carlo Marx, Old Bull Hubbard, Camille, and others. Acclaimed author Paul Maher takes readers on the road with Jack Ker...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
November 2nd 2007
by Da Capo Press
(first published November 1st 2007)
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A great follow up read to "Windblown World". Incorporates excerpts from Kerouac's journals as well as from books and correspondence between all the major (and minor) beat cast of characters to form a chronological "true-life" narrative of the actual goings-on that led up to the publication of "On the Road" in 1957. Done in a prose-documentary style that cross-cuts between the different players as their paths recede and diverge over the course of a decade, this makes for a fast, often illuminatin...more
This was a solid book that I couldn't hesitate recommending to any fan of Kerouac's best known work. In fact, for someone like myself, who is enamored with On the Road, yet gets bored reading about Kerouac's pseudo-buddhism, this is exactly what you're looking for. Maher does an admirable job of covering all the standard "young Kerouac" stories that get touched upon to frame the writing of On the Road, while still approaching the text itself without a specific angle, which has been my gripe with...more
On the road is not my favourite book by Jack Kerouac so I might not have bought this book if it had not been going cheap on a sale. I'm glad I did buy it, though, because I found it more interesting than On the road, and it explains how that book was written.
I recently read Neal Cassady: the fast life of a beat hero (review here), and found several details in this book that three more light on Cassady's character and behaviour than his biography did. Perhaps Paul Maher had access to more source...more
I recently read Neal Cassady: the fast life of a beat hero (review here), and found several details in this book that three more light on Cassady's character and behaviour than his biography did. Perhaps Paul Maher had access to more source...more
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Similar to "Jack Kerouac Matters," this book offered nothing new to the experienced and knowledgable Kerouac scholar. However, if you're new to Kerouac, this might be of great interest.
This book is like watching an episode of Mad Men. The men are awful and misogynistic, the women are loose and trampled upon. You wouldn't want any of these people as family, but you can't help being interested.
It gathers together accounts of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and others whose real life wanderings made it into Kerouac's amazing On The Road
If you love Kerouac's masterpiece as much as I do, you'll find this book a necessary read. If you don't, go read On The Road again,...more
It gathers together accounts of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and others whose real life wanderings made it into Kerouac's amazing On The Road
If you love Kerouac's masterpiece as much as I do, you'll find this book a necessary read. If you don't, go read On The Road again,...more
I really wanted to like this book, if for no other reason than because I love "On The Road". In fact, "On The Road" may be my favorite novel, one which thrills and inspires me more with each read. In Jack Kerouac's American Journey, Kerouac scholar Paul Maher chronologically recreates the events that inspired "On The Road", which seems like a win win, especially if you are interested in the man behind the novel and how he relates to his thinly disguised alter-ego Sal Paradise in "On The Road".
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Biography of Jack Kerouac focused on the time in his life when he traveled the country, hung out with Neal Cassady and dreamed up the novel "On the Road".
A good book on the real life stories, relationships and adventures that inspired Keouac to write "On the Road". It was interesting to me to learn how much of the novel was true and actually happened to Kerouac and Cassady.
A good book on the real life stories, relationships and adventures that inspired Keouac to write "On the Road". It was interesting to me to learn how much of the novel was true and actually happened to Kerouac and Cassady.
I've read several books by and about Jack Kerouac, yet I learned a few new tidbits about the author through Paul Maher's "behind-the-scenes" chronicle of On the Road. Not a bad read for someone wanting to delve deeper into Kerouac.
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