Kerouac

After surviving an earthquake in Mexico City, JACK KEROUAC returns to New York City in 1957 to be with his girlfriend, JOYCE GLASSMAN, in time for the publication of his soon-to-be legendary novel On the Road. The day after his arrival, they rush to a kiosk in the middle of the night to retrieve the morning edition of the New York Times. Inside is the first review of On the Road. “You’re going to be famous in the morning,” Joyce tells him. Flashback to 1927—Jack and his family suffer the tragic and traumatic loss of Jack’s beloved older brother GERARD. By 1941, Jack is a college drop-out and disappointment to his parents, even as he pursues his dream of writing with famed Beat writers ALLEN GINSBERG and WILLIAM BURROUGHS. He spends the next few years on merchant marine ships, briefly joins the military only to be dismissed as an “indifferent character,” and parties in New York City with his new circle of bohemian friends. After being implicated in a murder, he is bailed out of jail by his then girlfriend EDIE PARKER on the condition that they marry. Jack attempts a middle-class life in Michigan with Edie, but soon realizes that’s not his road. Jack finds his road upon meeting counter-culture hero NEAL CASSADY, who inspires him to take wild cross-country trips while also radically influencing Jack’s writing into a new spontaneous prose that eventually leads to writing On the Road in a 20-day, drug-and-coffee-fueled sprint. Returning to 1957, the fame that follows Kerouac’s seminal novel does little to help him. He continues his downward spiral of failed romantic relationships and out-of-control alcoholism, taking him down a dark path while he grows more and more dependent on his controlling mother. After a final failed attempt at sobriety in lonely Big Sur, Kerouac succumbs to the disease while rejecting his standing as the founder of the Beat Generation. He is terrorized by the influence he had on inspiring the hippies and 60s revolutionary spirit. He dies at 47 in 1969, and is buried in Lowell by his closest friends, including Allen. As the credits roll, we see the real Jack Kerouac, young and handsome, reading from On the Road on the Steve Allen Show, with Steve playing jazz piano as Jack reads.