by Jack Kerouac
wife, Joan Haverty.
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1951. Lives with Joan at
454 W. 20th St.; reads manuscripts of
Burroughs’ Junkie and Holmes’ Go in
January-March; in April writes roll manu-
script of On the Road in three weeks in
New York City; Joan orders him out of
apartment in May; in October discovers his
compositional method of "sketching" or
"spontaneous prose" and begins to rewrite
On the Road as the experimental book
Visions of Cody; arrives at San Francisco
home of Neal and Carolyn Cassady in
December; gets $250 advance for On the
Road from Ace Books.
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1952. Writes Doctor Sax in
Mexico City; works as a student brakeman
and writes "The Railroad Earth" in San
Francisco; daughter, Jan Kerouac, born in
Albany, New York, to Joan Haverty.
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1953. Writes Maggie Cassidy
and The Subterraneans in New York; works for
Southern Pacific railroad out of San Jose; signs
up as a waiter on the William Carruth bound for
Korea but quits in New Orleans; back in New
York, meets and has love affair with "Mardou
Fox".
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1954. Begins study of
Buddhism in New York and California;
writes San Francisco Blues
in San
Francisco, Some of the Dharma in New
York and North Carolina; Sterling Lord
becomes his literary agent; arrested for
non-support of his daughter, Jan.
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1955. Hitchhikes to Mexico
City, falls in love with Esperanza
Villanueva, an Indian prostitute addicted to
drugs; writes Mexico City Blues, begins
Tristessa in Mexico City; travels to San
Francisco to see Ginsberg, meets Kenneth
Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gary
Snyder, Philip Whalen, Michael McClure;
attends "6 Poets at the 6 Gallery" reading in
San Francisco; returns to North Carolina.
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1956. Writes Visions of
Gerard in North Carolina; hitchhikes to
California, shares cabin with Snyder in
Marin County; writes Scripture of the
Golden Eternity; meets Alan Watts and
Robert Creeley; works as a firewatcher in
Washington State; returns to Mexico City
and writes first part of Desolation Angels
and completes Tristessa; returns to New
York with Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky;
meets Salvador Dali.
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1957. Signs book contract
with Viking Press for On the Road; begins
romance with Joyce Glassman; meets
William Carlos Williams; visits Burroughs
in Tangier, travels in Europe; moves with
mother to Berkeley, California, then back
to Orlando, Florida; On the Road published
on September 5th; writes The Dharma
Bums in Florida.
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1958. The Subterraneans
published by Grove Press; buys house in
Northport, Long Island, and moves mother
there from Florida; starts Memory Babe;
breaks up with Joyce Glassman and begins
affair with Dody Muller.
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1959. Narrates film Pull
My Daisy in New York; meets Anais Nin;
Truman Capote, on the David Susskind
television show, refers to Kerouac’s writ-
ing as "typewriting"; drinking heavily;
Doctor Sax published by Grove; sells
Northport home and returns with mother
to Orlando; Maggie Cassidy published as a
paperback original by Avon; breaks off
with Muller and begins relationship with
Lois Sorrell; television sit-com Dobie
Gillis
features "beatnik" character,
Maynard G. Krebs; moves mother back to
Northport yet again; appears on the Steve
Allen Show in Hollywood and has dinner
with Mamie Van Doren after the show;
attends screening of Pull My Daisy in San
Francisco; Mexico City Blues published by
Grove; drives back to New York with Lew
Welch and Albert Saijo.
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1960. Falls while drunk
and injures elbow and head on two occa-
sions; experiences first bouts of delirium
tremens; Avon published Tristessa and
movie version of The Subterraneans
is
released; LeRoi Jones’ Totem Press pub-
lishes Scripture of the Golden Eternity and
New Directions issues a limited edition of
Visions of Cody; takes train to San
Francisco and visits with Ferlinghetti and
Cassady; suffers a breakdown in
September; returns to Northport to live
with mother; Lonesome Traveler published
by McGraw-Hill, and Book of Dreams pub-
lished by City Lights.
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1961. With Allen Ginsberg,
takes psilocybin provided by Timothy
Leary; moves with mother to Florida yet
again; finishes Book of Dreams; flies to
Mexico City and writes second half of
Desolation Angels; returns to Florida and
writes Big Sur in ten nights; heavy drinking
and partying with Lucien Carr and friends
in New York and brief affair with teenager
named Yseult; back to Florida.
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1962. Goes on a "30-day
drunk" during visit to New York; frequent
trips back and forth from Florida to New
York, Maine, Cape Cod, Connecticut,
Lowell; Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy pub-
lishes Big Sur; moves with mother by train
back to Northport again.
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1963. Drinks and plays
pool at Gunther’s Bar in Northport;
Cassady comes to visit; Visions of Gerard
released by Farrar, Straus, and Cudahy.
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1964. Gives reading at
Harvard University; Cassady drives
Kerouac to New York City to meet "Merry
Pranksters" at a party on Park Avenue;
writes Vanity of Duluoz; in an interview,
claims he supports Barry Goldwater for
president; sells Northport house and
moves with mother to St. Petersburg,
Florida, where he is arrested for urinating
in public.
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1965.Breaks off with Gins-
berg because he is offended by Ginsberg’s
political activity; Coward-McCann publish-
es Desolation Angels; visits Paris and writes
Satori in Paris in one week after returning
to Florida; hangs out at Wild Board Tavern
in Tampa; drives to Connecticut to visit
John Clellon Holmes and to Lowell to see
Tony and Stella Sampas and other Lowell
friends.
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1966. Sells St. Petersburg
house and moves with his mother to
Hyannis on Cape Cod; Grove publishes
Satori in Paris; mother suffers stroke; trav-
els to Italy to promote Italian edition of Big
Sur; marries Stella Sampas in Hyannis; is
arrested twice in December for public
drunkenness.
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1967. Moves with Stella
and mother back to Lowell; drinks at
Nicky’s Bar, owned by brother-in-law
Nicky Sampas; attends Expo ’67 in
Montreal; daughter Jan visits in Lowell.
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1968. Neal Cassady
dies; Vanity of Duluoz is published;
travels to Europe with Tony and Nick
Sampas; spends a night in jail for car-
rying an open bottle of beer on the
street; appears on The Firing Line with
William F. Buckley; reunites with
Burroughs and Carr in New York;
drives to new home in St. Petersburg
with his wife Stella and his mother;
takes large doses of LSD at friend Cliff
Anderson’s cabin in the woods.
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1969.Gets beaten up in
the Cactus Bar in St. Petersburg; on
October 21, Jack Kerouac dies from hem-
orrhaging at St. Anthony’s Hospital in St.
Petersburg.
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