Novel
On the Road
Jack Kerouac · 1957
Synopsis
Sal Paradise, a young writer who lives with his aunt near New York, meets Dean Moriarty, a boy from Denver who has been through reform school and wants to learn to write from him. From 1947 to 1950, Sal crosses the country several times, alone or with Dean: by bus, hitchhiking, in a Cadillac to be delivered, with a load of furniture from Virginia. Denver, San Francisco, New Orleans at Old Bull Lee's, the cotton fields where Sal works with Terry, the jazz clubs, then Mexico. Dean steals cars, marries Marylou, then Camille, and sets off again.
Context
The text was typed in April 1951, in about twenty days, on a scroll some thirty-six metres long made of sheets glued end to end so as not to have to change pages. It took him six years to get it published: Viking took it in 1957, with cuts and changed names to avoid libel suits. Gilbert Millstein, in the New York Times of 5 September 1957, hailed it as the book of the Beat generation. The scroll text appeared in 2007. The scroll, bought for 2.43 million dollars in 2001, was resold in March 2026 for 12.1 million.
Who it is for
A fast-paced novel, in two versions: the 1957 text, translated by Jacques Houbart in 1960, and the scroll text, translated by Josée Kamoun in 2010.
Prizes and reception
More than four million copies sold in fifty years; translated into more than thirty languages.
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