Michael F.
Jack Kerouac’s roman à clef On the Road is now 67 years young. It is a novel based on Kerouac’s life and friends from 1947 until 1950. They were remarkable friends who included the artist and writer William Burroughs, the great poet Alan Ginsberg and Kerouac’s crazy friend Neal Cassidy, albeit with different names in the novel. This is the classic of the beat generation, a movement of the 1950’s that favored jazz, marijuana, overuse of alcohol and free sexuality. Those themes permeate the book as the main character Sal Paradise travels multiple times across the country and ultimately to Mexico. It is a wonderful story with unforgettable characters whose expressed feelings and thoughts are sometimes troubling and sad but often humorous and entertaining. Along the way, Sal Paradise experiences poverty, overuse of alcohol, irresponsibility, the love of jazz (called “bop” as in bebop), smoking marijuana (called “tea”), theft, misuse of money and a love for meeting crazy new people if even for a few hours. It is a true American classic. The audiobook is read by the great actor Will Patton whose slang, laughing and sometimes singing perfectly captures the feelings of the beat generation.