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March 30, 2008 6:27 PM Subscribe
Where did Jack Kerouac actually stay when he went On the Road? Is there anywhere I could stay where he once did?
Best answer: This is not as specific as actual hotels, but here is a map, drawn by Kerouac, of the trajectory of his travels. That blog indicates that wordsareimportant is the source for the map. Look in the "Kerouac Corner" for questions about old Jack answered by an English scholar. He accepts new questions by email and at the least should be able to point you in the right direction. There might be another lead in the rather extensive list of "Kerouac Links" on that site as well.
One thing that came to mind right away is that you can probably see a lot of the places Kerouac stayed even though you can't stay in them. I mean that he stayed with friends who were often well-known authors, poets and artists in their own right. You could visit the house of Bull Hubbard (William Borroughs) in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, but I doubt you could sleep there.
It's not On the Road, but you can hike up to the wilderness fire lookout that Kerouac manned in 1956. This part of his life was the inspiration for Desolation Angels.
I think this is a fascinating question. Wouldn't it be a kick in the pants to recreate the party in the hotel in Colorado with all of the minor players in the opera? Especially if you didn't have to clean up afterwards.
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 11:38 PM on March 30, 2008
One thing that came to mind right away is that you can probably see a lot of the places Kerouac stayed even though you can't stay in them. I mean that he stayed with friends who were often well-known authors, poets and artists in their own right. You could visit the house of Bull Hubbard (William Borroughs) in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, but I doubt you could sleep there.
It's not On the Road, but you can hike up to the wilderness fire lookout that Kerouac manned in 1956. This part of his life was the inspiration for Desolation Angels.
I think this is a fascinating question. Wouldn't it be a kick in the pants to recreate the party in the hotel in Colorado with all of the minor players in the opera? Especially if you didn't have to clean up afterwards.
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 11:38 PM on March 30, 2008
Also, googling "where kerouac sleep 'on the road'" yielded some interesting results. There's a depressingly banal and mundane attempt by a writer for USA Today to recreate Kerouac's journey, but in a rented Mitsubishi Eclipse. I can't tell whether his complaints about the precariously hung towels in the Holiday Inn juxtaposed with quotes from the book are supposed to be humorous or just surreal. While it's possible that there might bve a clue in there, I can't even bear to link to it.
Alternatively, another link in the goog's search results seems to summarize the trip in some detail and gives us this lead: "In Harrisburg [PA] I had to sleep in the railroad station on a bench; at dawn the station masters threw me out." So, there's at least one place you could sleep.
It's a little late for me to wade through all of this stuff, right now. I'll definitely be following this thread, though.
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 11:53 PM on March 30, 2008
Alternatively, another link in the goog's search results seems to summarize the trip in some detail and gives us this lead: "In Harrisburg [PA] I had to sleep in the railroad station on a bench; at dawn the station masters threw me out." So, there's at least one place you could sleep.
It's a little late for me to wade through all of this stuff, right now. I'll definitely be following this thread, though.
posted by HE Amb. T. S. L. DuVal at 11:53 PM on March 30, 2008
I usually liked to stay at little dive, mom and pop motels when doing road trips. I never ceased to find places that looked, inside and out, like throwbacks to the 50s. Forget the Days Inn or Super 8 motels. Just think fleabags and you can get a great feel for The Road.
posted by JJ86 at 6:38 AM on March 31, 2008
posted by JJ86 at 6:38 AM on March 31, 2008
Response by poster: Thanks Trenton, those leads and ideas are fantastic. I've done some research of my own and have found The Hôtel de Vieux in Paris. Not On The Road, of course, but once the home of Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg and Corso. Back then, it was a flop house. Now its a four-star hotel.
I've also got leads on the Cameo Hotel in San Francisco and somwhere called the Marlton Hotel
posted by MrMerlot at 12:17 PM on April 6, 2008
I've also got leads on the Cameo Hotel in San Francisco and somwhere called the Marlton Hotel
posted by MrMerlot at 12:17 PM on April 6, 2008
Response by poster: Oh, BTW, the link to the house of Bull Hubbard appears to be broken
posted by MrMerlot at 12:18 PM on April 6, 2008
posted by MrMerlot at 12:18 PM on April 6, 2008
I think you definitely are gonna want to pick up a book called Jack Kerouac’s American Journey, by Paul Maher, Jr., which details the four long-distance trips that Kerouac made between 1947, when he bused and hitchhiked by himself from New York to Denver, and 1950, when he drove with Cassady and another friend from Denver to Mexico City.
You'll probably also be interested in this eye-opening New Yorker article, which attempts to ground Kerouac as a serious writer and dispel a bit of the sentimental myth that's grown up around him:
"Kerouac is quite explicit about it: the trips in “On the Road” were made for the purpose of writing “On the Road.” The motive was not tourism or escape; it was literature. [...] He kept detailed journals, and he struggled for a long time to find the proper form for a narrative. [I]t was three years before he finally dropped the idea of a conventional novel and simply wrote down what had happened. This was the celebrated scroll on which Kerouac typed the first complete draft of the book in three weeks in April, 1951. He immediately retyped the book on regular paper, and then spent six years revising it. [It is] clear that, despite his later talk about the spontaneous method of composition, Kerouac did not create the published book in a single burst of inspiration. It was the deliberate and arduous labor of years."
posted by Ian A.T. at 3:27 AM on April 25, 2008 [1 favorite]
You'll probably also be interested in this eye-opening New Yorker article, which attempts to ground Kerouac as a serious writer and dispel a bit of the sentimental myth that's grown up around him:
"Kerouac is quite explicit about it: the trips in “On the Road” were made for the purpose of writing “On the Road.” The motive was not tourism or escape; it was literature. [...] He kept detailed journals, and he struggled for a long time to find the proper form for a narrative. [I]t was three years before he finally dropped the idea of a conventional novel and simply wrote down what had happened. This was the celebrated scroll on which Kerouac typed the first complete draft of the book in three weeks in April, 1951. He immediately retyped the book on regular paper, and then spent six years revising it. [It is] clear that, despite his later talk about the spontaneous method of composition, Kerouac did not create the published book in a single burst of inspiration. It was the deliberate and arduous labor of years."
posted by Ian A.T. at 3:27 AM on April 25, 2008 [1 favorite]
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posted by Dizzy at 6:34 PM on March 30, 2008