K erouac, J ack

Jack Kerouac was a leading figure among the Beat Generation writers of the 1950s. Over 30 of Kerouac's works are in print, and he remains one of the most popular American novelists of the twentieth century. His 1957 novel, On the Road , inspired numerous young people to spurn conventional middle‐class lives and instead to embark on impulsive adventures and spiritual quests. As a result, Kerouac is sometimes called the daddy of the hippies and the father of the counterculture. He did not relish these titles and wished to be known instead as an innovative writer, yet many of his fans are as interested in his life as in his work; he is the subject of no fewer than 15 biographies. Kerouac saw religious significance in many of the wandering folks he met on the road: hobos, petty criminals, drug addicts, and also, as he wrote in On the Road , “the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing” (1957, 8). Kerouac is associated today in the popular culture with such people, and with adventurous travel via such nonconventional means as train‐hopping and hitchhiking.