Track Changes

Jack Kerouac was 37 years old when this photo was taken. Ten years later he was dead.

The photo was taken by John Cohen. On The Road had been published two years prior. This was Kerouac at his peak. The long, steady decline from this moment until his death, from alcoholism, ten years later, was likely already on display here. He looks a little puffy, a little unfocused, turning the dial and listening to a radio interview he gave (to who? I couldn’t find out) in a workshop.

Kerouac tried to get On The Road published for ten years before it was eventually released by Viking Press in 1957. The long wait took its toll. He likened the fame and adulation that followed to “old newspapers blowing down Bleecker Street”.

From the moment of publication his talent was in decline. His subsequent books were all an imitation of the “spontaneous prose” genre he invented – although I’ll defend Dharma Bums from criticism.