Jack Kerouac // Current

The battle for Jack Kerouac's estate

Hmmmm...I wonder what Jack would say?

The only people for me’, Jack Kerouac famously wrote in On The Road, the book that made his name, ‘are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous Roman candles...’

For Kerouac, the candle burned out all too quickly. When Kerouac died in 1968 at the age of 47, he was a broken alcoholic, his literary reputation so depleted he was unable even to find a paperback publisher for his last novel, Vanity of Duluoz. Unsure of what value to put on his estate, the bank valued it at a nominal $1. Over the years, it would rise to an estimated $20m.

When Kerouac died, he left everything to the woman he had loved most throughout his live - his mother, Gabrielle. When she died five years later, she in turn left everything to Kerouac’s third wife, Stella Sampas - setting in train the events that led to Stella’s family managing the Kerouac estate for the past 19 years.

Now that legacy has been sensationally called into question, with a ruling by a Florida court that the will that Gabrielle signed, leaving everything to her daughter in law, was, in fact, a forgery.

The ruling appears to bring to a close a bitter legal feud that has run for the past 15 years, featuring a colourful cast of characters including the daughter that Kerouac spent much of his life disowning, the nephew who until recently was living in the front seat of a Dodge pick-up in a California junkyard, the author of ‘a critical biography’ of Kerouac, and the retired antiques dealer who has overseen the transformation of Kerouac’s into one of the most valuable commodities in the world of American letters.

Just how valuable was demonstrated in 2001, when the original Teletype roll of On The Road was sold at Christie’s to James Isray, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts football team, for $2.43m - a world record for a literary manuscript.

On The Road was the book that came to define the beat generation, an exhilarating amphetamine-fuelled account of Kerouac’s furious travels back and forth across America in search of enlightenment and kicks.

Published in 1957, the book made Kerouac a literary sensation, but also proved his undoing. While he produced eight more books, he was never able to cope with the burden of being ‘king of the Beats’, and overwhelmed by alcoholism, he withdrew from public life, living with his mother, firstly in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts and then in Florida.Hmmmm...I wonder what Jack would say? The only people for me’, Jack Kerouac... more

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Get Your Bongos and Start Growing Your Fu-Manch! Beat is Back!

Gloria Ballen writes, "I love the whole Kerouac zeitgeist and I've always thought of myself as a free spirit at heart. I've fantasized about being an enlightened dancing bohemian like Isadora Duncan, a beat poetess like Diane DiPrima, a Janis-like hippie chick. Sure, back in the day I wore patched bell-bottoms, the fringed vest, and smelled of patchouli oil, but it was more about peer pressure than philosophy. I admit it, I'm not sure I'm willing to yank the Sub-Zero out of the wall and swap it for the Sears Kenmore model. As writer Rob Walker puts it, I might be called a "Fauxhemian." Ouch.

In his novel "Dharma Bums," Kerouac wrote about "a vision of a rucksack revolution" - a rejection of consumer society; an unwillingness to be "imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume. . ." Kerouac refused to subscribe to the demand of "having to work for the privilege of consuming all the crap they didn't want anyway."

I did give away the Magic Bullet blender I impulse-ordered watching an infomercial on TV at 2 a.m. one sleepless night, and I recently gave up my bimonthly manicures, the cleaning lady, and Pilates classes. I realize these are just token sacrifices. How do I actually unsubscribe to the lure of mass consumerism? Can't I just "click here to unsubscribe," like online spam? Wouldn't it be nice if we could just hit the delete button or drag and drop our debt, our greed, and our guilt right into the trash? As far as I know, there isn't an app for that on my iPhone.

Seventy-six years ago this week, when the technology of the day was radio, FDR took to the airwaves, in the depths of the Great Depression. His opening fireside chat changed the way politics was communicated, restored confidence in the devastated economy, and gave hope to the poor and the beaten down with his final words, "together we cannot fail."

Maybe this Neo-Beat thing isn't so much a movement as it is a new consciousness to see oneself clearly - a kind of spiritual stimulus package for all of us "fauxhemians." Perhaps what we need to do is dust off the old rucksack, blaze a new trail, and, just like Jack did, challenge the status quo. Hopefully, along the way, we'll find the inner strength to need less, want less, and discover some of the universal dharma in all of us."Gloria Ballen writes, "I love the whole Kerouac zeitgeist and I've always thought of... more