Editing Jack Kerouac (section)

===Early career: 1950–1957===
[[Image:Jacks house3.JPG|thumb|Jack Kerouac lived with his parents for a time above a corner drug store in Ozone Park (now a flower shop),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe=off&num=100&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=%22LITTLE+SHOPPE+OF+FLOWERS%22+%22Ozone+Park%22+Queens+%22New+York%22&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&cid=0,0,6055163161404423961&ei=rL37SfO0BZmSswOXo731AQ&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=image&resnum=1 |title=LITTLE SHOPPE OF FLOWERS" "Ozone Park" Queens "New York|publisher=Google Maps |date=January 1, 1970 |access-date=November 21, 2013}}</ref> while writing some of his earliest work.]]

''[[The Town and the City]]'' was published in 1950 under the name "John Kerouac" and, though it earned him a few respectable reviews, the book sold poorly. Heavily influenced by Kerouac's reading of [[Thomas Wolfe]], it reflects on the generational epic formula and the contrasts of small-town life versus the multi-dimensional, and larger life of the city. The book was heavily edited by [[Robert Giroux]], with around 400 pages taken out.

[[File:Jack Kerouac House, New York City, NY.jpg|thumb|454 West 20th Street]]
For the next six years, Kerouac continued to write regularly. Building upon previous drafts tentatively titled "The Beat Generation" and "Gone on the Road", he completed what is now known as ''On the Road'' in April 1951, while living at 454 West 20th Street in Manhattan with his second wife, [[Joan Haverty Kerouac|Joan Haverty]].<ref name="epic">{{cite web|author=Wolf, Stephen|url=http://www.thevillager.com/villager_238/anepic.html|title=An epic journey through the life of Jack Kerouac|work=[[The Villager (Manhattan)|The Villager]]|date=November 21–27, 2007|access-date=May 14, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706005254/http://thevillager.com/villager_238/anepic.html|archive-date=July 6, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> The book was largely autobiographical and describes Kerouac's road-trip adventures across the United States and Mexico with Neal Cassady in the late 40s and early 50s, as well as his relationships with other Beat writers and friends. Although some of the novel is focused on driving, Kerouac did not have a driver's license and Cassady did most of the cross-country driving. He learned to drive aged 34, but never had a formal license.<ref>{{cite news |last=Briere |first=Rachel R. |url=https://www.lowellsun.com/2006/10/06/you-dont-know-jack-about-kerouac/ |title=You don't know Jack about Kerouac |work=[[The Sun (Lowell)]] |date=October 6, 2006 |access-date=July 27, 2020 |archive-date=July 27, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727173738/https://www.lowellsun.com/2006/10/06/you-dont-know-jack-about-kerouac/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Kerouac completed the first version of the novel during a three-week extended session of spontaneous confessional prose. Kerouac wrote the final draft in 20 days, with Joan, his wife, supplying him with benzedrine, cigarettes, bowls of pea soup, and mugs of coffee to keep him going.<ref name="amburn">{{Cite book|author=Amburn, Ellis |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bN0PJn6VCNIC&pg=PA164|title=Subterranean Kerouac: the hidden life of Jack Kerouac|date=October 5, 1999| publisher=Macmillan |access-date=September 28, 2010|isbn=9780312206772}}</ref> Before beginning, Kerouac cut sheets of tracing paper<ref name="sante">{{cite news|author=Sante, Luc|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/books/review/Sante2-t-1.html|title=On the Road Again|newspaper=The New York Times|date=August 19, 2007|access-date=May 10, 2008|archive-date=November 24, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201124092512/https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/books/review/Sante2-t-1.html|url-status=live}}</ref> into long strips, wide enough for a typewriter, and taped them together into a {{convert|120|ft|m|adj=on}} long roll which he then fed into the machine. This allowed him to type continuously without the interruption of reloading pages. The resulting manuscript contained no chapter or paragraph breaks and was much more explicit than the version which was eventually published. Though "spontaneous," Kerouac had prepared long in advance before beginning to write.<ref name="allthings">{{cite web|author=Shea, Andrea|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14112461|title=Jack Kerouac's Famous Scroll, 'On the Road' Again|publisher=[[National Public Radio|NPR]]|date=July 5, 2007|access-date=April 29, 2008|archive-date=July 10, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220710223807/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14112461|url-status=live}}</ref> In fact, according to his Columbia professor and mentor [[Mark Van Doren]], he had outlined much of the work in his journals over the several preceding years.

Though the work was completed quickly, Kerouac had a long and difficult time finding a publisher. Before ''On the Road'' was accepted by Viking Press, Kerouac got a job as a "railroad brakeman and fire lookout" (see [[Desolation Peak (Washington)]]) traveling between the East and West coasts of the United States to earn money, frequently finding rest and the quiet space necessary for writing at the home of his mother. While employed in this way he met and befriended Abe Green, a young freight train jumper who later introduced Kerouac to [[Herbert Huncke]], a Times Square street hustler and favorite of many Beat Generation writers. 

According to Kerouac, ''On the Road'' "was really a story about two Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found him. I found him in the sky, in Market Street San Francisco (those 2 visions), and Dean (Neal) had God sweating out of his forehead all the way. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY OUT FOR THE HOLY MAN: HE MUST SWEAT FOR GOD. And once he has found Him, the Godhood of God is forever Established and really must not be spoken about."<ref name="culturewars.com"/> According to his biographer, historian [[Douglas Brinkley]], ''On the Road'' has been misinterpreted as a tale of companions out looking for kicks, but the most important thing to comprehend is that Kerouac was an American Catholic author – for example, virtually every page of his diary bore a sketch of a crucifix, a prayer, or an appeal to Christ to be forgiven.<ref name="weekendedition">{{cite web|author=Vitale, Tom|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14112461|title='On the Road' at 50|publisher=[[National Public Radio|NPR]]|date=September 1, 2007|access-date=February 28, 2011|archive-date=July 10, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220710223807/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14112461|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the spring of 1951, while pregnant, Joan Haverty left and divorced Kerouac.<ref>{{harvnb|Knight|1996|pp=88}}</ref> In February 1952, she gave birth to Kerouac's only child, [[Jan Kerouac]], whom he acknowledged as his daughter after a blood test confirmed it nine years later.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.bookrags.com/biography/jan-kerouac-dlb/|title=Jan Kerouac Biography|website=[[Dictionary of Literary Biography]]|access-date=May 10, 2008|archive-date=December 6, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081206144048/http://www.bookrags.com/biography/jan-kerouac-dlb/|url-status=live}}</ref> For the next several years Kerouac continued writing and traveling, taking long trips through the U.S. and Mexico. He often experienced episodes of heavy drinking and depression. During this period, he finished drafts of what became ten more novels, including ''[[The Subterraneans]]'', ''[[Doctor Sax]]'', ''[[Tristessa]]'', and ''[[Desolation Angels (novel)|Desolation Angels]]'', which chronicle many of the events of these years.

Despite being friends, Kerouac and Ginsberg often took opposing sides of electoral politics. In 1952, Kerouac endorsed the [[Old Right (United States)|Old Right]] candidate [[Robert A. Taft]] of the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]], while Ginsberg expressed support of [[Adlai Stevenson II]] of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]].<ref>{{cite book | first=Jonah | last=Raskin | url=https://www.google.dk/books/edition/American_Scream/SVA0389HG-UC?hl=da&gbpv=1&dq=kerouac+robert+taft&pg=PA162&printsec=frontcover | title=
American Scream, Allen Ginsberg's Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation | publisher=University of California Press |date=April 7, 2004 | pages=320| isbn=9780520939349}}</ref>

In 1953, he lived mostly in New York City, having a brief but passionate affair with [[Alene Lee]], an African-American woman, and member of the Beat generation. Alene was the basis for the character named "Mardou" in the novel ''The Subterraneans,'' and Irene May in ''[[Book of Dreams (novel)|Book of Dreams]]'' and ''[[Big Sur (novel)|Big Sur]]''. At the request of his editors, Kerouac changed the setting of the novel from New York to San Francisco.<ref>{{cite book | first=James | last=Campbell | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xq-AZZ-zXkcC&pg=PA142 | title=This is the Beat Generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris | publisher=University of California Press |date=November 2001 | pages=138–139, 142 | isbn=0-520-23033-7}}</ref>

In 1954, Kerouac discovered Dwight Goddard's ''A Buddhist Bible'' at the [[San Jose, California|San Jose]] Library, which marked the beginning of his study of Buddhism. Between 1955 and 1956, he lived on and off with his sister, whom he called "Nin," and her husband, Paul Blake, at their home outside of [[Rocky Mount, North Carolina]] ("Testament, Va." in his works) where he meditated on, and studied, Buddhism.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/books/article10358366.html|title=The Road to Rocky Mount|work=newsobserver|access-date=August 14, 2018|language=en|archive-date=August 14, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814170530/https://www.newsobserver.com/entertainment/books/article10358366.html|url-status=live}}</ref> He wrote ''Some of the Dharma'', an imaginative treatise on Buddhism, while living there.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aceswebworld.com/kerouac8.html|title=Jack Kerouac: All Roads Lead to Rocky Mount by Daniel Barth (pg 8)|website=www.aceswebworld.com|access-date=August 14, 2018|archive-date=August 14, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814170147/http://www.aceswebworld.com/kerouac8.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dharmabeat.com/someofdharma.html|title=DHARMA beat – A Jack Kerouac Website|website=www.dharmabeat.com|access-date=August 14, 2018|archive-date=August 2, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200802024916/http://www.dharmabeat.com/someofdharma.html|url-status=live}}</ref> However, Kerouac had earlier taken an interest in Eastern thought. In 1946 he read Heinrich Zimmer's ''Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization''. In 1955, Kerouac wrote a biography of [[Gautama Buddha|Siddhartha Gautama]], titled ''Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha'', which was unpublished during his lifetime, but eventually serialized in ''[[Tricycle: The Buddhist Review]]'', 1993–95. It was published by Viking in September 2008.<ref>{{Cite book|title=''Wake Up!'' on Amazon.com}}</ref>

[[Image:Jack Kerouac House - Orlando Florida.jpg|thumb|House in [[College Park (Orlando)|College Park]] in Orlando, Florida, where Kerouac lived and wrote ''[[The Dharma Bums]]'']]

Kerouac found enemies on both sides of the [[Left–right political spectrum|political spectrum]], the right disdaining his association with drugs and sexual libertinism and the left contemptuous of his anti-communism and Catholicism; characteristically, he watched the 1954 Senate [[Army–McCarthy hearings|McCarthy hearings]] smoking marijuana and rooting for the anti-communist crusader, Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]].<ref name="culturewars.com"/> In ''Desolation Angels'' he wrote, "when I went to Columbia all they tried to teach us was [[Karl Marx|Marx]], as if I cared" (considering Marxism, like [[Sigmund Freud|Freudianism]], to be an illusory tangent).<ref>{{cite book|last=Fisher|first=James Terence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q08cuo8-7ggC |title=The Catholic Counterculture in America, 1933–1962|pages=216, 237|publisher=UNC Press|year=2001|isbn=9780807849491}}</ref>

In 1957, after being rejected by several other publishers, ''On the Road'' was finally purchased by [[Viking Press]], which demanded major revisions prior to publication.<ref name="allthings"/> Many of the most sexually explicit passages were removed and, fearing [[Defamation|libel]] suits, pseudonyms were used for the book's "characters." These revisions have often led to criticisms of the alleged spontaneity of Kerouac's style.<ref name="sante"/>