© 2026. The Trustees of Indiana University
Copyright Complaints
1229 East Seventh Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47405
News, Arts and Culture from WFIU Public Radio and WTIU Public Television
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Back in Black: Jack Kerouac Makes the LOA

The Library of America to publish The Road Novels. First Philip K. Dick, now JK... can Burroughs be far behind? I've always had mixed feelings about Kerouac (though The Subterraneans held up pretty well a couple years back when I reread it for a Night Lights show I was working on); perhaps more to the point here, he's the kind of guy I generally want to read via a beat-to-hell paperback. I love the LOA & have a slew of their volumes, but with a writer like JK I want to smell a little bit of railroad earth around the edges. Could just be a stubborn undergraduate romanticist streak in me... in the meantime, there's a Night Lights show about Mr. Kerouac in the works.

UPDATE: A friend hipped me to an "original scroll" edition of On the Road, due out Aug. 16.

Stay Connected