Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac, c. 1956

Jack Kerouac was a Canadian-American writer associated with The Beat Generation and best known for writing On the Road, an autobiographical novel describing Kerouac's travels with Neal Cassady. He also wrote The Dharma Bums, which details his adventures with fellow writer Gary Snyder.

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Jack Kerouac provides examples of the following tropes:

• The Alcoholic: Kerouac died at the age of 47 due to decades of alcoholism.
• Author Avatar: Sal Paradise from On the Road is Kerouac. Kerouac uses avatars in virtually all of his novels, although for legal reasons, the names are changed from book to book. As a result, in The Dharma Bums, Kerouac is named Ray Smith, and in The Subterraneans, he is named Leo Percepied.
• Parody: Kerouac spoofed the Beat Generation in his 1959 work Pull My Daisy.