Tropic of Cancer
Miller’s autobiographical freedom carried into another American generation.
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On the Road
by Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac turns highways, jazz, friendship, poverty, and restless movement across America into the defining Beat novel.
- 1957
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeSal Paradise follows Dean Moriarty across America through cheap rooms, jazz clubs, friendships, women, drinking, exhilaration, boredom, and irresponsible decisions. The novel makes a disorderly autobiographical life feel immediate through the momentum of its voice.
What's inside
A young writer repeatedly crosses the United States with his charismatic friend, pursuing experience, movement, and the ecstatic promise of whatever comes next.
Why we recommend it
Life first, literature later
Kerouac shares Miller’s sense that friends, appetites, bad decisions, and restless movement can go straight onto the page.
What this book explores
Book editions
- Paperback
- Penguin Classics
- 2016
- 9780143129509
Reader reviews
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document On the Road, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1On the Road
NovelViking Press, 1957Used forPrimary source for the novel and its publication record.
i
Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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