Understanding Jack Kerouac

Understanding Jack Kerouac introduces readers to what Matt Theado calls Kerouac�s �unwieldy accretion of published work��fiction, poetry, nonfiction, selected letters, religious writing, and �true-story novels.� Presenting this cultural icon of the Beat Generation primarily as a writer rather than as a social rebel or media celebrity, Theado elucidates the reasons Kerouac�s reputation has outlived disparaging beatnik associations and why his writings continue to attract an expanding readership. Theado takes a book-by-book approach to the sometimes-confusing canon and develops a framework for understanding Kerouac�s thematic concerns, writing techniques, and artistic evolution. Proposing that the real legend of Jack Kerouac is the saga of a writer at work, Theado suggests that as recognition of Kerouac�s artistic achievement grows, the Duluoz Legend�Kerouac�s series of barely fictionalized re-creations of his life�outgrows the genre of autobiography and becomes an intimate chronicle of a writer�s stylistic maturation. Theado traces Kerouac�s development as a crafter of language and contends that spontaneous prose, Kerouac�s literary hallmark, may prove to be his chief claim to literary longevity.