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

main page | 20th-century literature | 20th-century fiction | Beat writers | about the Beats | about literaryhistory

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. New York: The New York Public Library, 2007. The Beat Review 2, 1 (Jan. 2008).

Grace, Nancy. 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) [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].

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

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. Carbondale: 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. New York: Viking, 2007. 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." NPR 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].

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].

Web sites

"Jack Kerouac: Present at the Creation." NPR, 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 from the Sampas family of Lowell, Massachusetts.

"Gerald Nicosia's Press Conference Speech, June 5, 2007." Kerouac's biographer Gerald Nicosia speaks on the retribution against him by John Sampas, who controls the Kerouac estate.

"Bebop." Gerald Nicosia's letter to the London Review of Books about his work with and in behalf of Jack Kerouac's daughter, Jan Kerouac. LRB 19 Oct., 1995.

On Kerouac's use of San Antonio, Texas, in On the Road. Literary San Antonio Eds. Paul McQuien and Kim G. Hochmeister.

main page | 20th-century literature | 20th-century fiction | Beat writers | about the Beats | about literaryhistory

1998-2010 by Jan Pridmore