The Cambridge Companion to Jack Kerouac

A major reassessment of Jack Kerouac's literary work.

Steven Belletto (Edited by)

9781009423564, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 June 2024

322 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.524 kg

'Steven Belleto's collection is an indispensable contribution to the ever-growing field of Beat studies and a useful addition to American studies in general … Highly recommended.' B. Almon, Choice

Jack Kerouac is among the most important and influential writers to emerge from mid-twentieth century America. Founder of the Beat Generation literary movement, Kerouac's most famous novel, On the Road, was known as the bible of this generation, and inspired untold people to question the rigid social and cultural expectations of 1950s America. And yet despite its undeniable influence, On the Road is only a small piece of Kerouac's literary achievement, and there are now well over forty Kerouac books published. The centerpiece to this work is Kerouac's multi-volume Duluoz Legend, named for his fictional alter-ego, Jack Duluoz, and comprising numerous books written over decades that together tell the story of Duluoz's life and times. This volume offers fresh perspectives on his multifaceted body of work, ranging from detailed analyses of his most significant books to wide-angle perspectives that place Kerouac in key literary, theoretical, and cultural contexts.

1. Kerouac's concept of his duluoz legend Ann Charters
2. Kerouac and the profession of authorship Matt Theado
3. Truth in confession: the foundation of Kerouac's literary experiment Nancy Grace
4. The textuality of performance: Kerouac's spontaneous prose Tim Hunt
5. The spontaneous aesthetic in the subterraneans George Mouritidas
6. Kerouac and the 1950s Douglas Field
7. The impact of on the road on the sixties' counterculture Kurt Hemmer
8. Vanity of duluoz and the 1960s David Stephen Calonne
9. Late Kerouac, or the conflicted 'king of the beatniks' Steven Belletto
10. Visions of Cody as metafiction Michael Hrebeniak
11. Making the past present: Kerouac and memory Erik Mortenson
12. Spun rhythms: Kerouac as poet Regina Weinreich
13. Kerouac's representations of women Ronna Johnson
14. Kerouac and blackness Amor Kohli
15. Kerouac, multilingualism, and global culture Hassan Melehy
16. The two phases of Kerouac's American Buddhism Sarah Haynes
17. Kerouac's ambivalences as an environmental writer Franca Bellarsi
18. The essentials of archival prose Jean-Christophe Cloutier.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]