What do you think?
Rate this book
Jack Kerouac's American Journey: The Real-Life Odyssey of "On the Road"
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 Kerouac and Neal Cassady via unprecedented access to Kerouac and Cassady's correspondence, Ginsberg and Kerouac's notebooks and journals, as well as a look at the formative experience of Kerouac's philosophical and authorial aesthetic that went into this 20th-century classic. Exactly fifty years after the September 1957 publication of On the Road comes the most thorough, insightful, and surprising account of the book's genesis.
296 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2007
9 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Paul Maher Jr.
30 books31 followersMaher was born in Amarillo, Texas, where his father was stationed in the Air Force. Shortly afterwards the family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, where Maher remained through childhood. Upon graduating from Dracut High School, he joined the United States Navy where he served in the Persian Gulf aboard the USS Ramsey. Upon discharge, Maher returned to Lowell. He attended Middlesex Community College and the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he obtained an undergraduate degree in American studies. He later completed a master's degree in Education with a concentration in English.
From 2004 through the present, Maher authored and edited seven books for publication. He has been translated and published in five countries.
From 2004 through the present, Maher authored and edited seven books for publication. He has been translated and published in five countries.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 13, 2009
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".
The problem with this book is it reads like a Wikipedia page. In that I mean that it is more or less a regurgitation of information from the diaries and memoirs of Kerouac, Ginsberg and others that has been pulled all together in one place for easy access, but without any style, flair or even much in the way of cohesion besides the fact that it is organized in roughly chronological order. It's not so much that Maher shows himself a bad scholar through this novel, just a bad writer. The material is interesting enough that I was able to slog though (if for no other reason, then for the love of Kerouac), and did give interesting insight from time to time on how much "On The Road" changed (beginning as a fictional story and becoming an ambitious experiment in autobiographical writing), but at points I found myself asking whether anyone had even edited the book. However, if you are as big of a fan of "On The Road" like me, you'll probably read Jack Kerouac's American Journey anyway, and you probably should.
The problem with this book is it reads like a Wikipedia page. In that I mean that it is more or less a regurgitation of information from the diaries and memoirs of Kerouac, Ginsberg and others that has been pulled all together in one place for easy access, but without any style, flair or even much in the way of cohesion besides the fact that it is organized in roughly chronological order. It's not so much that Maher shows himself a bad scholar through this novel, just a bad writer. The material is interesting enough that I was able to slog though (if for no other reason, then for the love of Kerouac), and did give interesting insight from time to time on how much "On The Road" changed (beginning as a fictional story and becoming an ambitious experiment in autobiographical writing), but at points I found myself asking whether anyone had even edited the book. However, if you are as big of a fan of "On The Road" like me, you'll probably read Jack Kerouac's American Journey anyway, and you probably should.
January 12, 2008
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.
January 24, 2019
Jack Kerouac’s infamous stream-of-consciousness writing style can be off-putting and even downright difficult to read. I gained a greater appreciation for it recently, though, when I learned more about his interest in Buddhism and meditation and in the value that mystery can have in illuminating human experience.
That said, I thought it might be interesting to experience Kerouac’s journey across America in more conventional prose, which is why I immediately gravitated to this book when I saw it on a display shelf in my local library recently.
The book is very interesting, and I would have kept reading if I hadn't had so many other books on my list. But what I really wanted from the book was more information and descriptions of the America which Kerouac saw and experienced on his cross-country journeys, whereas this book’s focus was on the characters who populated Kerouac’s experiences during this part of his life. So I only ended up reading about the first one third of it.
One valuable thing about the book is that it reveals the identities of the actual people behind the characters Kerouac created for them and describes their personalities and their interactions with each other in great detail. It was interesting, for example, to learn more about what Allen Ginsberg was like as a person. If that's of interest to you, then I highly recommend this book.
That said, I thought it might be interesting to experience Kerouac’s journey across America in more conventional prose, which is why I immediately gravitated to this book when I saw it on a display shelf in my local library recently.
The book is very interesting, and I would have kept reading if I hadn't had so many other books on my list. But what I really wanted from the book was more information and descriptions of the America which Kerouac saw and experienced on his cross-country journeys, whereas this book’s focus was on the characters who populated Kerouac’s experiences during this part of his life. So I only ended up reading about the first one third of it.
One valuable thing about the book is that it reveals the identities of the actual people behind the characters Kerouac created for them and describes their personalities and their interactions with each other in great detail. It was interesting, for example, to learn more about what Allen Ginsberg was like as a person. If that's of interest to you, then I highly recommend this book.
November 7, 2011
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 many other scholarly works about Kerouac.
Yes, there are times where it gets a little dry, and there are certainly passages that read more like a dissertation than a biographical work, but I'm more than willing to forgive any stylistic lapses because, frankly, he made some excellent points, and overall his analysis in connecting the fictional text with the historical and social backdrop was incredibly insightful.
One thought he brings up at one point, which is something that has never dawned on me, nor do I remember having read it in other Kerouac scholarship is the naming of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, and the possible connection to "Rebel Without a Cause", which was released two years before the publication of On the Road. While all scholars make points about the characters' last names, I never thought that the "Dean" of Dean Moriarty could have been a reference to James Dean, while Sal Paradise could have been reference to Sal Mineo, Dean's doting sidekick both in "Rebel" and On the Road.
All in all, it's a good read, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning something beyond the text itself.
Yes, there are times where it gets a little dry, and there are certainly passages that read more like a dissertation than a biographical work, but I'm more than willing to forgive any stylistic lapses because, frankly, he made some excellent points, and overall his analysis in connecting the fictional text with the historical and social backdrop was incredibly insightful.
One thought he brings up at one point, which is something that has never dawned on me, nor do I remember having read it in other Kerouac scholarship is the naming of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, and the possible connection to "Rebel Without a Cause", which was released two years before the publication of On the Road. While all scholars make points about the characters' last names, I never thought that the "Dean" of Dean Moriarty could have been a reference to James Dean, while Sal Paradise could have been reference to Sal Mineo, Dean's doting sidekick both in "Rebel" and On the Road.
All in all, it's a good read, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning something beyond the text itself.
November 22, 2007
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 illuminating, ultimately entertaining read for the lover of beat lore.
February 26, 2021
Paul Maher Jr. brings Jack Kerouac's multiple crossings of the United States, and a few dips to Mexico, to life in this biography of the beat writer. It can be dizzying at times with the various Kerouac's friends and lovers popping in and out of the book. More than anything, Maher examines the growth of a writer, including the self-doubts, rejections, and the determination to succeed. Besides Kerouac, the reader gets to know such luminaries as Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs, and lesser-knowns such as Neal Cassady, one of the book's main subjects and a great influence on Kerouac's mixed-up life.
September 27, 2025
I picked up this book thinking it was a travel story. It's not that, it's about how Jack Kerouac, the author of the immensely popular On the Road came to write it. Since I don't read fiction I missed out on reading it or even knowing about it. On the Road is not entirely fictional; it's a stream of consciousness reality with names changed. Although I found Maher's description of Kerouac's life and writing style engaging, I don't feel compelled to immerse myself in reading more Kerouac nor to delve into a study of his life as if I were an American lit major.
March 4, 2020
takes you through the actual events that lead to the formation and publication of On The Road.
March 12, 2012
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 sources. After reading the biography, I was at a loss to know why people like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were attracted to Cassady, though in Ginsberg's case the initial attraction was sexual. Maher manages to explain it better, though he still does not portray Cassady as a particularly attractive character.
That still doesn't explain why I liked this book better than On the road itself. Perhaps it is because the real life of authors is often more interesting than the characters they write about. My favourite among Kerouac's books is still The Dharma bums, and perhaps that is because it is more about the influence of Gary Snyder than that of Neal Cassady, and Snyder is a more sympathetic character.
One thing that almost put me off reading the book was odd errors in language. I suppose having been an editor makes me rather intolerant of slip-ups (even though I make plenty of my own). One of the more egregious ones was on page 133, "Carolyn Cassady received a letter from her husband, postmarked January 11. In it he promised her regular installments of cash from working two jobs in New York, neither of which he had yet to procure." I presume the author intended to say either "both of which he had yet to procure" or "neither of which he had yet procured", but as it stands it is a strange piece of nonsense. There are other similar errors, writing "principal" where "principle" was meant and so on. But I'm glad that these didn't put me off, because the book is worth reading, at least to anyone who has enjoyed reading any of Kerouac's books.
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 sources. After reading the biography, I was at a loss to know why people like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were attracted to Cassady, though in Ginsberg's case the initial attraction was sexual. Maher manages to explain it better, though he still does not portray Cassady as a particularly attractive character.
That still doesn't explain why I liked this book better than On the road itself. Perhaps it is because the real life of authors is often more interesting than the characters they write about. My favourite among Kerouac's books is still The Dharma bums, and perhaps that is because it is more about the influence of Gary Snyder than that of Neal Cassady, and Snyder is a more sympathetic character.
One thing that almost put me off reading the book was odd errors in language. I suppose having been an editor makes me rather intolerant of slip-ups (even though I make plenty of my own). One of the more egregious ones was on page 133, "Carolyn Cassady received a letter from her husband, postmarked January 11. In it he promised her regular installments of cash from working two jobs in New York, neither of which he had yet to procure." I presume the author intended to say either "both of which he had yet to procure" or "neither of which he had yet procured", but as it stands it is a strange piece of nonsense. There are other similar errors, writing "principal" where "principle" was meant and so on. But I'm glad that these didn't put me off, because the book is worth reading, at least to anyone who has enjoyed reading any of Kerouac's books.
November 22, 2016
While I did learn a few interesting things from this book I felt the overall writing was poor and seemed to take one step forward and two steps back. There didn't seem to be a smooth flow of story telling and by the time I was done I felt I had zigzagged all over the country and back with characters popping in for a few sentences then disappearing because now I'm in San Francisco, no now I'm in Denver, I've lost a few people that we were riding with and now I'm sitting in New York typing again And towards the end there was a lot of nothing but filler, I mean really, was the chapter America in 1957 really necessary to the book? Did we need to know every song, movie, book etc that was popular that year? Maybe our author was trying to imitate Jack Kerouac, or Neal Cassidy, perhaps that was the goal of this book. If this is so and considering I know/knew next to nothing about Kerouac then maybe I don't really need to try and learn more, because that style of writing is not really right for me.
August 3, 2010
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, because you're missing out.
eta: This book also details how Kerouac put everything together and the amount of time and rewrites it took through the years. Which is both interesting and comforting, if you've ever tried to write fiction.
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, because you're missing out.
eta: This book also details how Kerouac put everything together and the amount of time and rewrites it took through the years. Which is both interesting and comforting, if you've ever tried to write fiction.
July 27, 2019
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.
December 19, 2017
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.
September 1, 2016
a good book on jack
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews