Jack Kerouac

Lore & Background

Of French-Canadian parentage, Kerouac was raised in a French-speaking home in Lowell, Massachusetts. He learned English at age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens. During World War II, he served as a United States Merchant Mariner; he completed his first novel at the time, which was published more than 40 years after his death.

His first published book was The Town and the City (1950), and he achieved widespread fame and notoriety with his second, On the Road, in 1957. It made him a Beat icon, and he went on to publish 12 more novels and numerous poetry volumes. Kerouac died in 1969. Since then, his literary prestige has grown, and several previously unseen works have been published. Kerouac is recognized for his style of stream of consciousness spontaneous prose.

Thematically, his work covers topics such as religion and mysticism, childhood, poetry and literature, New York City and the Bay Area in the 40s and 50s, Buddhism, and life. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he despised the hippies and mostly remained uninterested in politics. He has a lasting legacy, greatly influencing many of the cultural icons of the 1960s, including Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jerry Garcia, and the Doors.

Reader's Guide

Kerouac was born on March 12, 1922, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to French Canadian parents, Léo-Alcide Kéroack and Gabrielle-Ange Lévesque. There is some confusion surrounding his name, partly because of variations on the spelling of Kerouac, and because of Kerouac's own statement of his name as Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac. His reason for that statement seems to be linked to an old family legend that the Kerouacs had descended from Baron François Louis Alexandre Lebris de Kerouac. Kerouac's baptism certificate lists his name simply as Jean Louis Kirouac.

Kerouac's roots were indeed in Brittany, and he was descended from a middle-class merchant colonist, Urbain-François Le Bihan, Sieur de Kervoac, whose sons married French Canadians. Kerouac's father Leo had been born into a family of potato farmers in the village of Saint-Hubert-de-Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec. Jack also had various stories on the etymology of his surname, usually tracing it to Irish, Breton, Cornish, or other Celtic roots. Kerouac, derived from Kervoach, is the name of a town in Brittany in Lanmeur, near Morlaix.

Jack Kerouac later referred to 34 Beaulieu Street as 'sad Beaulieu'. The Kerouac family was living there in 1926 when Jack's older brother Gerard died of rheumatic fever, aged nine. This deeply affected four-year-old Jack, who later said Gerard followed him in life as a guardian angel. This is the Gerard of Kerouac's novel Visions of Gerard.

He had one other sibling, an older sister named Caroline. Kerouac was referred to as Ti Jean or little John around the house during his childhood. Kerouac spoke French with his family and began learning English at school, around age six; he began speaking it confidently in his late teens. He was a serious child who was devoted to his mother, who played an important role in his life.

She was a devout Catholic, who instilled this deep faith into both her sons. He later said she was the only woman he ever loved. After Gerard died, his mother sought solace in her faith, while his father abandoned it, wallowing in drinking, gambling, and smoking. Some of Kerouac's poetry was written in French, and in letters written to friend Allen Ginsberg towards the end of his life, he expressed a desire to speak his parents' native tongue again.

Did You Know?

• Kerouac's first novel, The Sea Is My Brother, was written in 1942 but not published until 2011, more than 40 years after his death.
• He served as a United States Merchant Mariner in 1942 and later joined the Navy Reserves, but was honorably discharged on psychiatric grounds.