• Kerouac tended to write constantly, carrying a notebook with him everywhere. Letters to friends and family members tended to be long and rambling, including great detail about his daily life and thoughts.
• The Town and the City was published in 1950 under the name "John Kerouac," and, though it earned him a few respectable reviews, the book sold poorly.
• For the next six years, Kerouac wrote constantly. Building
upon previous drafts tentatively titled "The Beat Generation" and
"Gone on the Road," Kerouac completed what is now known as On the
Road in April 1951 while living at 454 West 20th Street in Manhattan with his
second wife, Joan Haverty.
• Before beginning, Kerouac cut sheets of tracing paper into long strips, wide enough for a type-writer, and taped them together into a 37m long roll he then fed into the machine. This allowed him to type continuously without the interruption of reloading pages.
• Though the work was completed quickly, Kerouac had a long and difficult time finding a buyer. Many editors were also uncomfortable with the idea of publishing a book that contained what were, for the era, graphic descriptions of drug-use and homosexual behavior, a move that could result in obscenity charges being filed, a fate that later befell Burroughs' Naked Lunch and Ginsberg's Howl.
• For the next several years Kerouac continued writing and
traveling, taking extensive trips throughout the U.S. and Mexico and often fell
into bouts of depression and heavy drug and alcohol use. During this period he
finished drafts for what would become 10 more novels, including The
Subterraneans, Doctor Sax, Tristessa and Desolation Angels, which chronicle
many of the events of these years.
• Kerouac eventually loast his battle with alcoholism at the
age of 47 and died in 1969. He was honored posthumously with a Doctor of
Letters degree from his hometown's University of Massachusetts Lowell.
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