May 6, 2025 • 10 mins
Few authors have impacted literature and our culture like On the Road author Jack Kerouac. But his short life was filled with pain, depression, addiction, and murder... as well as brilliance. This is a peek at his rise and fall.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, how about we take a wild road trip
with a true original an episode suggested by a listener
who goes by nine one one Grail. This is about
on the road author Jack Kerouac, the guy who practically
invented the beat generation. His life was messy, passionate, and heartbreaking,
filled with stories that changed American literature forever. But who
(00:22):
knew that he was involved in a front page murder story.
I'm Patty Steele. Jack Kerouac, restless, reckless and brilliant, but
unable to save himself. That's next on the backstory. The
backstory is back. We know him as the brilliant author
(00:43):
Jack Kerouac, But he was born Jean Louis le Brie
de Kiroac Love that on March twelfth, nineteen twenty two,
in Lowell, Massachusetts. His parents were French Canadian immigrants. This
great American author actually grew up speaking French, learning English
when he started school. Believe it or not, this creative
(01:04):
offbeat guy wasn't some odd dreamy kid. By high school,
Jack was a football star, snagging a scholarship to Columbia
University in New York City. Picture it a really handsome,
ambitious teenage football player pounding the pavement of Upper Manhattan
in the nineteen forties. Problem is, ambition isn't always coupled
(01:27):
with dedication. That's where the offbeat Kerouac shows up. He
just couldn't stick with it. He broke his leg in
his freshman year, Okay, not his fault, but the next
year he constantly clashed with his football coach. He was
benched most of that season. So Jack decided, I'm gonna
drop out of Columbia. Sure, So next he floated through
(01:49):
odd jobs all over Manhattan. He wrote constantly, and he
fell in with kind of a wild crew. They would
later be called the core of the Beach Generation. His
pals and included Alan Ginsburg, william S Burrows, and Lucian Carr,
all defining the counterculture. They partied, philosophized, got arrested, slept around,
(02:10):
and wrote poetry until dawn. But then one event changed everything.
Jack Kerouac was arrested as an accessory to a murder
committed by Lucian Carr. It was nineteen forty four, and
Carr claimed a guy named David Kamerer had been stalking
him for years. Finally they were walking in Manhattan's Riverside Park.
(02:30):
Late one night, Carr said Camerer made another aggressive sexual
come on to him. He said Camerer began to overpower him,
so he pulled out his boy scout knife and stabbed him. Well,
it killed him, He panics, what do I do? He
ties Camera's hands and feet together, and then, after weighing
the body down with Rocks, dumps him in the nearby
(02:53):
Hudson River. Probably not a great choice, now what Carr
goes to the apartment of his pal Burrows and asked
for help, but Burrows tells him to get a lawyer
and turn himself in. Next, he goes to Kerouac, who
helps him dispose of the knife in some of his clothing.
Then the pair goes to a movie. Sure. Finally, Carr
(03:13):
goes to his mother. She tells him go to the
DA immediately and turn yourself in, which he does. What's next, Well,
Burrows Andac are both hauled in by the cops as well.
They spend a few days in jail, arrested as material witnesses.
Burrow's dad posts his bail, but Jack's shocked father refuses
(03:34):
to help. Now it gets dicier since Jack doesn't have
the hundred bucks to get himself out of jail. He
needs a plan. He turns to the parents of his girlfriend,
Edie Parker. Edie has a trust fund, and Jack asks
the family if she can access a little bit of
bail money for him. Oddly, the parents say sure, as
(03:55):
long as you marry her first. Wow. Great parents with
detectives sirrving his witnesses, the pair gets married at the
municipal building and then Edie springs him from jail. They
wind up moving to Edie's hometown, Gross Pointe, Michigan, although
four years later the marriage is annulled. As for Lucian
car coming from money, having a top notch lawyer who
(04:17):
claims that Camerer was obsessed and pressuring young Lucian, who
was straight, for gay sex, the court system goes easy
on him, as did the press. The New York Daily
News referred to it as an honored killing. A later
account of the trial in Carr's obituary many years later
gives a similar view, saying central to Carr's defense was
(04:37):
that he was not gay and that Camerer, an older,
obsessive stalker, threatened sexual violence. Once the story of a
predatory homosexual was presented in court, Carr became a victim
and the murder was framed as an honored killing. There
was no one in court to question the story or
offer a different version of the relationship. Carr gets to
(04:58):
plead guilty to first to go manslaughter. He gets one
to twenty years, but he's released after just two years.
He goes on to a long successful career in journalism,
and in fact, his son, calib Car was the noted
author of the best seller The Alienist. For his part,
Karroac struggled, but he wrote constantly on everything from napkins
(05:20):
and coffee shops to stolen typewriters. Despite his alcohol and
drug addiction, he eventually found his voice. It was nineteen
fifty one and fueled by Benzadorian and endless coffee, Jack
sat down at a typewriter, probably a stolen With over
three frenzied weeks, he pounded out his classic On the Road.
(05:40):
He typed the whole thing on a single massive scroll
of tape together paper, no form, just pure stream of consciousness,
like no paragraphs. Nothing on the Road was based on
real road trips Kaak took with a pal. He kept
no notes, just stored all the experiences in his brilliant head.
The book captured the hunger of postwar kids looking for freedom, experience,
(06:05):
and something authentic. Interesting. Sidebar, Even though his most famous
book is all about a road trip, Jack Kerouac never
learned to drive in his life anyway. He submitted the book,
but publishers just didn't get it. They rejected On the
Road over and over and over. It remained unpublished for
six long years, during which Jack spiraled further into poverty
(06:29):
and depression, as well as addiction. When On the Road
finally hit shelves in nineteen fifty seven, it exploded. Critics
said it was the most beautifully executed, the clearest, and
most important utterance of its generation. Jack became an overnight legend.
Just one problem. Fame crushed him. He hated being labeled
(06:50):
King of the Beats. He hated the early hippies who
followed him around like he was some kind of prophet.
He hated interviews where people wanted him to be this wild,
drunken poet, even though by then that's pretty much exactly
what he was. Jack drank even more heavily, wildly. He'd
wander into bars, recite poems to total strangers, pick fights,
(07:13):
drink himself into a stupor, and friends like Alan Ginsburg
tried to help him, but he was a runaway train. However,
he kept writing. Books poured out of him, The Dharma
Bums about his experience with Buddhism, Desolation Angels about his
job as a fire lookout on a remote mountaintop, and
Big sur which was basically a devastating account of his
(07:37):
mental and physical collapse. He also wrote for magazines and
for all kinds of published journals. His writing became more raw, sadder,
and more fragmented. He was chronicling his own breakdown as
it happened. For a time, he seriously considered becoming a
Buddhist monk. He lived with his mom well into adulthood,
(07:58):
obsessively protective of her. He married three times, once for money,
once impulsively, and once out of loneliness. Jack Kerouac died
on October twenty first, nineteen sixty nine. He was just
forty seven years old. Cause of death internal bleeding from
a lifetime of alcohol abuse. He died broke, living in
(08:19):
Saint Petersburg, Florida, with his mom and his third wife.
But here's the thing, Jack Kerouac's legacy isn't his sad ending.
It's the energy he captured, the yearning, the music of movement.
When you read On the Road or the Dharma Bombs,
you can feel that urgent heartbeat, that refusal to settle
(08:41):
for a normal life when there's a whole, vast world
out there. As he wrote on the Road, the only
people for me 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. Jack Kerouac taught
(09:04):
us that the search matters even when the road ends badly. Again,
I want to thank backstory listener nine one one Grail
for suggesting this amazing dive into Jack Kirouac. Really interesting.
I hope you're enjoying the backstory with Patty Steele. Please
leave a review and follow or subscribe for free to
(09:25):
get new episodes delivered automatically, and also feel free to
DM me if you too have a story you'd like
me to cover. Like nine one one Grail on Facebook
It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm
Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
(09:45):
the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The
(10:06):
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
All right, how about we take a wild road trip
with a true original an episode suggested by a listener
who goes by nine one one Grail. This is about
on the road author Jack Kerouac, the guy who practically
invented the beat generation. His life was messy, passionate, and heartbreaking,
filled with stories that changed American literature forever. But who
(00:22):
knew that he was involved in a front page murder story.
I'm Patty Steele. Jack Kerouac, restless, reckless and brilliant, but
unable to save himself. That's next on the backstory. The
backstory is back. We know him as the brilliant author
(00:43):
Jack Kerouac, But he was born Jean Louis le Brie
de Kiroac Love that on March twelfth, nineteen twenty two,
in Lowell, Massachusetts. His parents were French Canadian immigrants. This
great American author actually grew up speaking French, learning English
when he started school. Believe it or not, this creative
(01:04):
offbeat guy wasn't some odd dreamy kid. By high school,
Jack was a football star, snagging a scholarship to Columbia
University in New York City. Picture it a really handsome,
ambitious teenage football player pounding the pavement of Upper Manhattan
in the nineteen forties. Problem is, ambition isn't always coupled
(01:27):
with dedication. That's where the offbeat Kerouac shows up. He
just couldn't stick with it. He broke his leg in
his freshman year, Okay, not his fault, but the next
year he constantly clashed with his football coach. He was
benched most of that season. So Jack decided, I'm gonna
drop out of Columbia. Sure, So next he floated through
(01:49):
odd jobs all over Manhattan. He wrote constantly, and he
fell in with kind of a wild crew. They would
later be called the core of the Beach Generation. His
pals and included Alan Ginsburg, william S Burrows, and Lucian Carr,
all defining the counterculture. They partied, philosophized, got arrested, slept around,
(02:10):
and wrote poetry until dawn. But then one event changed everything.
Jack Kerouac was arrested as an accessory to a murder
committed by Lucian Carr. It was nineteen forty four, and
Carr claimed a guy named David Kamerer had been stalking
him for years. Finally they were walking in Manhattan's Riverside Park.
(02:30):
Late one night, Carr said Camerer made another aggressive sexual
come on to him. He said Camerer began to overpower him,
so he pulled out his boy scout knife and stabbed him. Well,
it killed him, He panics, what do I do? He
ties Camera's hands and feet together, and then, after weighing
the body down with Rocks, dumps him in the nearby
(02:53):
Hudson River. Probably not a great choice, now what Carr
goes to the apartment of his pal Burrows and asked
for help, but Burrows tells him to get a lawyer
and turn himself in. Next, he goes to Kerouac, who
helps him dispose of the knife in some of his clothing.
Then the pair goes to a movie. Sure. Finally, Carr
(03:13):
goes to his mother. She tells him go to the
DA immediately and turn yourself in, which he does. What's next, Well,
Burrows Andac are both hauled in by the cops as well.
They spend a few days in jail, arrested as material witnesses.
Burrow's dad posts his bail, but Jack's shocked father refuses
(03:34):
to help. Now it gets dicier since Jack doesn't have
the hundred bucks to get himself out of jail. He
needs a plan. He turns to the parents of his girlfriend,
Edie Parker. Edie has a trust fund, and Jack asks
the family if she can access a little bit of
bail money for him. Oddly, the parents say sure, as
(03:55):
long as you marry her first. Wow. Great parents with
detectives sirrving his witnesses, the pair gets married at the
municipal building and then Edie springs him from jail. They
wind up moving to Edie's hometown, Gross Pointe, Michigan, although
four years later the marriage is annulled. As for Lucian
car coming from money, having a top notch lawyer who
(04:17):
claims that Camerer was obsessed and pressuring young Lucian, who
was straight, for gay sex, the court system goes easy
on him, as did the press. The New York Daily
News referred to it as an honored killing. A later
account of the trial in Carr's obituary many years later
gives a similar view, saying central to Carr's defense was
(04:37):
that he was not gay and that Camerer, an older,
obsessive stalker, threatened sexual violence. Once the story of a
predatory homosexual was presented in court, Carr became a victim
and the murder was framed as an honored killing. There
was no one in court to question the story or
offer a different version of the relationship. Carr gets to
(04:58):
plead guilty to first to go manslaughter. He gets one
to twenty years, but he's released after just two years.
He goes on to a long successful career in journalism,
and in fact, his son, calib Car was the noted
author of the best seller The Alienist. For his part,
Karroac struggled, but he wrote constantly on everything from napkins
(05:20):
and coffee shops to stolen typewriters. Despite his alcohol and
drug addiction, he eventually found his voice. It was nineteen
fifty one and fueled by Benzadorian and endless coffee, Jack
sat down at a typewriter, probably a stolen With over
three frenzied weeks, he pounded out his classic On the Road.
(05:40):
He typed the whole thing on a single massive scroll
of tape together paper, no form, just pure stream of consciousness,
like no paragraphs. Nothing on the Road was based on
real road trips Kaak took with a pal. He kept
no notes, just stored all the experiences in his brilliant head.
The book captured the hunger of postwar kids looking for freedom, experience,
(06:05):
and something authentic. Interesting. Sidebar, Even though his most famous
book is all about a road trip, Jack Kerouac never
learned to drive in his life anyway. He submitted the book,
but publishers just didn't get it. They rejected On the
Road over and over and over. It remained unpublished for
six long years, during which Jack spiraled further into poverty
(06:29):
and depression, as well as addiction. When On the Road
finally hit shelves in nineteen fifty seven, it exploded. Critics
said it was the most beautifully executed, the clearest, and
most important utterance of its generation. Jack became an overnight legend.
Just one problem. Fame crushed him. He hated being labeled
(06:50):
King of the Beats. He hated the early hippies who
followed him around like he was some kind of prophet.
He hated interviews where people wanted him to be this wild,
drunken poet, even though by then that's pretty much exactly
what he was. Jack drank even more heavily, wildly. He'd
wander into bars, recite poems to total strangers, pick fights,
(07:13):
drink himself into a stupor, and friends like Alan Ginsburg
tried to help him, but he was a runaway train. However,
he kept writing. Books poured out of him, The Dharma
Bums about his experience with Buddhism, Desolation Angels about his
job as a fire lookout on a remote mountaintop, and
Big sur which was basically a devastating account of his
(07:37):
mental and physical collapse. He also wrote for magazines and
for all kinds of published journals. His writing became more raw, sadder,
and more fragmented. He was chronicling his own breakdown as
it happened. For a time, he seriously considered becoming a
Buddhist monk. He lived with his mom well into adulthood,
(07:58):
obsessively protective of her. He married three times, once for money,
once impulsively, and once out of loneliness. Jack Kerouac died
on October twenty first, nineteen sixty nine. He was just
forty seven years old. Cause of death internal bleeding from
a lifetime of alcohol abuse. He died broke, living in
(08:19):
Saint Petersburg, Florida, with his mom and his third wife.
But here's the thing, Jack Kerouac's legacy isn't his sad ending.
It's the energy he captured, the yearning, the music of movement.
When you read On the Road or the Dharma Bombs,
you can feel that urgent heartbeat, that refusal to settle
(08:41):
for a normal life when there's a whole, vast world
out there. As he wrote on the Road, the only
people for me 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. Jack Kerouac taught
(09:04):
us that the search matters even when the road ends badly. Again,
I want to thank backstory listener nine one one Grail
for suggesting this amazing dive into Jack Kirouac. Really interesting.
I hope you're enjoying the backstory with Patty Steele. Please
leave a review and follow or subscribe for free to
(09:25):
get new episodes delivered automatically, and also feel free to
DM me if you too have a story you'd like
me to cover. Like nine one one Grail on Facebook
It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm
Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
(09:45):
the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram
at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The
(10:06):
pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.
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