|
|
Article: BRAINSTORMS A COMPENDIUM OF JACK KEROUAC'S JOURNALS SHEDS LIGHT ON A LITERARY INNOVATOR
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- November 7, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2004 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
By traditional standards, Jack Kerouac was a failure. A Columbia
University dropout and washed-up football star, discharged from
wartime military service for having an "indifferent character," the
Lowell native was, at age 26, unemployed and broke, living with his
widowed mother in a tiny apartment in Ozone Park, N.Y. But Kerouac
was determined to become a published writer, sleeping all day, waking
after dark to take long walks through Brooklyn and Queens, and
churning out what he hoped was the great American novel.
Early on June 16, 1948, the earnest young scribbler had an
epiphany that would change the course of his work and the direction
of 20th-century American literature: "While ...