Jack Kerouac: Conservatives Should Not Judge Him So Fast

Should conservatives take time to reflect on the life and work of Jack Kerouac on the centennial of his birth?

Kerouac, who was born in Lowell, Mass., on March 12, 1922, and whose troubled life ended on October 21, 1969, may be a canonical American writer with fans around the world. But he was a leading figure in the Beat literary movement, which exalted drugs, lewdness, hedonism, rootlessness, and rebellion against what it saw as the traditionalism and conformity of a hidebound mid-century America. Kerouac was a close friend of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who proudly proclaimed, in his poem “In the Baggage Room at Greyhound,” written barely three years after the death of Stalin, “I am a communist.” (And that is one of Ginsberg’s more printable utterances.)

About the Author

Michael Washburn

Michael Washburn is a New York-based novelist and short story writer. His most recent book is Infinite Desert.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

Should conservatives take time to reflect on the life and work of Jack Kerouac on the centennial of his birth?

Kerouac, who was born in Lowell, Mass., on March 12, 1922, and whose troubled life ended on October 21, 1969, may be a canonical American writer with fans around the world. But he was a leading figure in the Beat literary movement, which exalted drugs, lewdness, hedonism, rootlessness, and rebellion against what it saw as the traditionalism and conformity of a hidebound mid-century America. Kerouac was a close friend of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who proudly proclaimed, in his poem “In the Baggage Room at Greyhound,” written barely three years after the death of Stalin, “I am a communist.” (And that is one of Ginsberg’s more printable utterances.)