Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

A selective list of online literary criticism for Jack Kerouac, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Web Pages

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Literary Criticism

Abbott, Keith. A review of Book of Haikus, by Jack Kerouac, edited by Regina Weinreich. Abbott maintains that Kerouac "wrote the largest body of the best haiku in the English language." Rain Taxi magazine, Winter, 2003/2004.

Charters, Ann. "Ann Charters on Jack Kerouac" Poetry Flash 288 (2001). An interview by Jack Foley.

Charters, Ann. A review of Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac on the Road by Isaac Gewirtz (The New York Public Library, 2007). The Beat Review 2, 1 (Jan. 2008).

Dew, Spencer. "Devotion to Solipsism: Religious Thought and Practice in Jack Kerouac's Tristessa." With papers in response by Benedict Giamo, Sarah Haynes, Nancy Grace, Amy Hungerford, Omar Swartz, Matt Theado and Eric Ziolkowski. The Religion & Culture Web Forum, April 2010. University of Chicago Divinity School.

Douglas, Ann. "'Telepathic Shock and Meaning Excitement': Kerouac's Poetics of Intimacy." College Literature 27 (Winter 2000).

Grace, Nancy M. "A White Man in Love: A Study of Race, Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Jack Kerouac's Maggie Cassidy, The Subterraneans, and Tristessa." College Literature 27 (Winter 2000).

Grace, Nancy M. Publisher's site for Jack Kerouac and the Literary Imagination (Macmillan 2009). Chapters on Some of the Dharma, Doctor Sax, On the Road, Desolation Angels, Mexico City Blues and on Kerouac's influence on later writers, including Hunter Thompson and Bob Dylan.

Grace, Nancy M. A review of You’ll Be Okay: My Life with Jack Kerouac by Edie Kerouac-Parker. City Lights Books, 2007. The Beat Review 1, 2 (Oct. 2007).

Harris, Oliver. "Cold War Correspondents: Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassady, and the Political Economy of Beat Letters." Twentieth Century Literature, 2000 (and Allen Ginsberg; Neal Cassady).

- - -. "The Holy Shit of Burroughs and Kerouac." From the conference "Kerouac’s On the Road: The Beats and the Post-Beats," 2008.

Holton, Robert. "Kerouac Among the Fellahim: On The Road To The Postmodern." Modern Fiction Studies 41 (1995) (first page only).

Hunt, Tim. Publisher's site for Kerouac's Crooked Road: The Development of a Fiction (Southern Illinois UP). "Hunt draws on Kerouac's letters, novels, poetry, and experimental drafts to position Kerouac in both historical and literary contexts, emphasizing the influence of writers such as Emerson, Melville, Wolfe, and Hemingway on his provocative work."

Januzzi, Marisa. "Kerouac and Berrigan and the Poetics of Providence." Poetry and New Materialities. A comparison of the two writers (and Ted Berrigan; Providence, Rhode Island).

Johnson, Ronna C. "'You're Putting Me On': Jack Kerouac and the Postmodern Emergence." College Literature 27 (Winter 2000).

Moore, Dave. A review of Book of Sketches by Jack Kerouac, introduction by George Condo (Penguin, 2006). The Beat Review 2, 1 (Jan. 2008).

Mortenson, Erik R. "Beating time: Configurations of temporality in Jack Kerouac's On the Road." College Literature, Fall 2001.

Paton, Fiona. A review of Action Writing: Jack Kerouac’s Wild Form by Michael Hrebeniak (Southern Illinois UP 2006). The Beat Review 1, 2 (Oct. 2007).

Prothero, Stephen. A review of Some of the Dharma, the (then) recently published notebooks of Kerouac covering the period from 1953-1956, when he was exploring Buddhism. Salon magazine, Nov. 1997.

Sørensen, Bent. "An On & Off Beat: Kerouac's Beat Etymologies." Philament 3 (2004).

Theado, Matt. A review of On the Road: The Original Scroll. Ed. by Howard Cunnell (Viking 2007). "Three short sentences, two substantive emendations. And I had only just started reading. Later, I compared my scroll notes and the photos of the scroll (from the Christie’s auction catalog and Rolling Stone magazine). I found numerous emendations of substantives and accidentals....The lack of a list of substantive emendations means that the book, which is marvelous to read, is of limited usefulness to textual scholars. One cannot know what Kerouac typed." The Beat Review 1, 2 (Oct. 2007).

Introduction & lighter reading

Ellis, R.J. "Jack Kerouac." Literary Encyclopedia. 25 Jan., 2008. Eds. Robert Clark, Emory Elliott, Janet Todd. An introduction to Kerouac, from a database that provides signed literary criticism by experts in their field, and is available to individuals for a reasonably-priced subscription.

Pinchbeck, Daniel. "My Mother and Jack Kerouac." Salon Magazine June, 2000. Pinchbeck, who is Joyce Johnson's son, writes about Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters 1957-1958, the letters of Jack Kerouac and Joyce Johnson.

Shea, Andrea. "Jack Kerouac's Famous Scroll, 'On the Road' Again." National Public Radio 5 July 2007. On the drafting, writing, and publishing of On the Road.

Teaching resources for Jack Kerouac. American Writers, C-Span, 2002 (minimal info, dead links).

Web sites

"Jack Kerouac: Present at the Creation." National Public Radio, 2002. An extended introduction to Kerouac.

"Digital Beats". U Massachusetts, Lowell. Kerouac recordings and interviews from the 1950s and 60s, links to literary criticism. (Still valuable although no longer maintained and many dead links.)

"Dharma beat." Ed. Attila Gyenis. Kerouac articles, news, information, and links.

"Jack Kerouac Chronology." Cosmic Baseball.

Beat Angel: The Spirit of Kerouac. Information about the independent film.

Lowell Blues. A film by Henry Ferrini fuses visual history, language and jazz into a 30-minute film poem about the town where Kerouac grew up, includes video clip.

Who Owns Jack Kerouac? Film about the Kerouac estate controversy, the battle waged by Kerouac's daughter to gain control of her father's archives.

One Fast Move or I’m Gone (2008). A film by Curt Worden honoring Kerouac's 1962 novel Big Sur, with appearances by David Amram, Carolyn Cassady, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Johnson, Michael McClure, Sam Shepard, Patti Smith, and Tom Waits.

Removed articles

http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/mcquien/htmlfils/kerouac2.htm On Kerouac's use of San Antonio, Texas, in On the Road. Literary San Antonio, Eds. Paul McQuien and Kim G. Hochmeister (removed).

Brief discussion of the unpublished Kerouac papers in Lowell, Mass., and an introduction to Kerouac by historian Douglas Brinkley, who has been granted access to the Kerouac archives. Atlantic Monthly, November 1998 (removed).

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