12 March 2026
Oh, where to start with Mr. Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac—that French-Canadian kid from Lowell? Mr. Sal Paradise, Ray Smith, Ti Jean, Mr. Jack Duluoz of Duluoz legend?
Oh, Jack, I once wrote in a song that you were King. I once got stuck on a cliffside in Big Sur trying to sneak down to your cabin beneath the Bixby Canyon Bridge. I once hitchhiked to Denver to see a friend, like you did, all because of your silly exciting words of go and see and be in love with your life.
Now, all these years later, how do I begin to approach you and your art?
My favorite books? Or, at least, the most important books for me?
Let me start there…
- On the Road: I’m not some shallow-end of the pool simpleton, but On the Road has to be on the list, for what it does to everyone at a certain age, and for what it did for me. How the road grew from it as my writing life opened up from its pages.
- Desolation Angels: If I wanted a deeper dive into the world behind The Dharma Bums, my professor said, pick up a copy of Desolation Angels, and so I did. // April of 2010, Half Price Books, Richardson, Texas, according to the receipt (on a return trip back to campus from DFW.)
- The Subterraneans: A real blur of a book. Fast. Punchy. Rambly. Written in a three-day frenzy, according to Kerouac legend, and it sure feels like it.
- Book of Sketches: There’s no way to overstate this book. A little bigger than my hand, yet 375 pages, this deep-river-stone of a book taught me how to see the world, how to be excited by my life, how to enjoy the art of our simple day-to-day happenstance of character and chance, and recognize the poetry in it.
My favorite words, lines, and scribbles? I’ll list a few…
- “… the only truth is music… Music blends with the heartbeat universe and we forget the brain beat.” (Desolation Angels)
- “Great simple art is always suddenly inexplicable and forever understood; it looms, like a forest.” (Journal entry, 1950, Windblown World.)
- “I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was—I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and the footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else…” (On the Road)
My favorite biographies? Like Dylan, I’ve read too many, but there are some great ones out there…
- The Voice Is All is probably the best, as it tracks his lonely journey to find his voice, through the lens of friends and writing and all that became his life.
- Why Kerouac Matters gives weight to Jack in a different way. It culls life lessons from On the Road and, like the subtitle tells us, the lessons aren’t really what we think they are.
- Kerouac in Florida takes you through the final dark days, when Jack drinks himself to death down in Orlando. It’s a very Florida book—filled with oranges and moonlight.
Looking at my bookshelf today, Kerouac has a whole row to himself.
Eleven novels.
Five books of poetry.
One book of dreams.
One book of Buddhist explorations, notes, and ramblings.
One enormous collection of journal entries.
And five biographies.
With all that under my belt, and all that road, I feel qualified to ask the big questions.
All these years later, where do we find Jack Kerouac?
In the heart of a Saturday night, Tom Waits might say.
But wherever he is, I still feel him from time to time. I can feel his words, the ones that roll around for years and stick. I can still feel his silly open-hearted, road-weary rhythms, dancing along the highway.
Here’s to you, old Jack.
Happy birthday.
[March 12, 1922.]
Writing from Here 