If he hadn't lapsed into fatal alcoholism at age 47, Jack Kerouac might've turned 92 today. To have outlived his junkie buddy & fellow Beat writer William S. Burroughs (who made it to the grandfatherly age of 83) would've been an impressive accomplishment indeed.
According to a story on the Boston-based public radio program Here & Now today, people still leave tokens of esteem & little gifts on his grave in Lowell, Massachusetts. Ti Jean (Little John), as his French-Canadian mama always called him, wasn't even fluent in English until his teens, yet he wrote some of the bestselling novels (On The Road, The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans) ever written in American English in the last century.
Kerouac's staying power as a novelist, poet & mythical literary hero was brought home to me in Nashville, where I spent some time in 2010 with a Danish medical student named Andreas. He left town with a bag full of Kerouac & other Beat books. Jack would've dug our trip to a small airfield in Lebanon (TN): Andreas spent the day with a medevac helicopter crew as part of his internship at Vanderbilt University Hospital, a real airborne adventure, while I explored nearby Cedars of Lebanon State Park.
Rest in peace, Jack. At least you're no longer haunted by the deaths of your brother Gerard (in childhood) & your Lowell pals Sammy & Billy (in WWII). And Ten Thousand Maniacs wrote a cool tribute song to you ("Hey, Jack Kerouac") in the late 1980's.
Rest in peace, Jack. At least you're no longer haunted by the deaths of your brother Gerard (in childhood) & your Lowell pals Sammy & Billy (in WWII). And Ten Thousand Maniacs wrote a cool tribute song to you ("Hey, Jack Kerouac") in the late 1980's.
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