Why Kerouac Matters

Again, thanks to Jeff Meyerson for the link.

Why Kerouac Matters - John Leland - Books - Review - New York Times: "Twenty years ago, like so many slack 17-year-olds before and since, I devoured “On the Road” and it devoured me. The pages of my copy were dog-eared, -nosed and -throated, and I was beholden to the book in ways I can’t quite believe now. Did I really go for midnight drives down by the ruined flour mills with the tape deck blaring Dexter Gordon? Did I really attend a high school costume dance dressed as Jack Kerouac? I know for sure — because proof exists — that the year I graduated I chose this bit of the novel’s last paragraph as my yearbook entry: “And nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old.”"