News Release

Get a first-hand look at the result of Jack Kerouac’s 20-day writing frenzy which led to his classic Beat novel On the Road when the original manuscript of the work makes its first West Coast visit Jan. 14-March 19 to the Main Library.

The manuscript, on loan from the private collection of Indianapolis Colts football team owner James S. Irsay, is comprised of 12-foot-long strips of paper pasted together to form a scroll measuring 119 feet, 8 inches. Kerouac was known as a “lightning typist” and he constructed the scroll to be fed into a typewriter so that his typing and narrative would not be interrupted by the need to change paper. The type of paper used has been cause for dispute; at times it has been referred to as teletype paper, drafting paper, Japanese art paper or even shelf-liner paper. Careful examination of the scroll reveals ruled pencil lines along the edges in some portions, suggesting that the paper was cut to a width that would fit into Kerouac’s typewriter platen.

The scroll contains various pencil markings, crossouts and lines throughout, and the end is tattered – thanks to the dog of Kerouac’s friend, Lucien Carr, some say. Kerouac wrote the groundbreaking work in 1951 employing “spontaneous prose,” a nonstop, unedited style inspired by letters from his friend, Neal Cassady.

Thirty-six feet of the original manuscript will be exhibited, along with an overview of Kerouac’s life, other works and a brief history of the Beat movement, told through photos, books and ephemera in the Jewett Gallery at the Main Library.

On the Road charts the adventures of two young men, the narrator Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, whose characters were based on Kerouac and Cassady. Two other characters, Carlo Marx and Old Bull Lee were based on Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. Their travels to American small towns, cities, and the desert convey the experiences of 1950s outsiders deviating from the materialism and conformity of the era. In their search to live life to the fullest and to find personal freedom, they explore sex, drugs and jazz. Underlying these worldly concerns is a spiritual quest.

Kerouac’s other works include Big Sur, Visions of Cody, Doctor Sax, Maggie Cassidy, The Subterraneans, Tristessa, Desolation Angels, Visions of Gerard and The Dharma Bums.

Exhibition:

On the Road: The Jack Kerouac Manuscript
Jan. 14 - March 19
Main Library, Lower Level, Jewett Gallery
100 Larkin Street (at Grove)

Related Programs

Kerouac's On the Road: From East to West
Gerald Nicosia, author of Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac, discusses the life of Jack Kerouac, his classic book On the Road and Kerouac's connection to San Francisco.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
2 p.m. - 3 p.m.
Main Library, Lower Level, Koret Auditorium
100 Larkin Street (at Grove)

Women of the Beat Movement
Brenda Knight, author of Women of the Beat Generation, discusses the lives and times of the Beats with Eileen Kaufman, Mary Norbert Korte, Jamie Cassady and Joanna McClure. Author ruth weiss will read poetry accompanied by jazz music.
Wednesday, February 9
6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Main Library, Lower Level, Koret Auditorium
100 Larkin Street (at Grove)

Beat virtual “walking tour”
Bill Morgan, author of The Beat Generation in San Francisco, provides a virtual “walking tour” of the Beat homes and haunts in San Francisco. Co-sponsored by City Lights Books.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Main Library, Lower Level, Koret Auditorium
100 Larkin Street (at Grove)

Thursdays at Noon Large Screen Video Series
Main Library, Lower Level, Koret Auditorium
100 Larkin Street (at Grove)

The Beats: Jack Kerouac and Friends

• January 5 – The Source (1999, 89 min.)– A portrait of the Beat Generation with archival interviews and readings by Dennis Hopper and Johnny Depp.
• January 12 – The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg (2005/1992, 82 min.) – A newly updated “director’s cut” of the 1992 biographical documentary on the most famous Beat poet.
• January 19 – The Coney Island of Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1996, 60 min.) - Poet and publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti expounds on the roles of poets and authors of dissident literature in American culture. The film includes conversations and commentary with Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Ed Sanders, Amiri Baraka and others.
• January 26 – Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats (1985, 73 min.) – Peter Coyote narrates this documentary with dramatic recreations of scenes from Kerouac’s fiction.

The exhibition and programs are free and open to the public. They are presented by the San Francisco Public Library and sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.
For more information, please call 415.557.4282.