Kerouac's Brand Gap.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road being published. I think about poor old Jack from time to time. Not the super cool, burning to live, image of him, but the sad, lonely alcoholic who died at 47 while still living with his mother. After Road was published; the fame that it brought became a monster that devoured him. Why? Maybe he just couldn’t manage his brand. He is credited for being the avatar of the beat generation, but I would argue that he didn’t create that persona.

A section of US culture felt a great void that 50’s Americana simply could not fill. America’s subconscious created the figure without a name or face. Jack brought both and filled the need along with his rude, whiplash tenderness, prose. He played a part he didn’t create. He coined the term beatnik, but it was Allen Ginsberg who put the name out there. I contend that without Allen, the beats would have never been seen as a literary movement. The thing with Allen though, is he was far too counter-culture to fill the icon role that Jack did. I think it could be said that a communist, Jewish, homosexual, pothead may even be too counter-culture for today’s mass consumption.

The brand gap? The role he filled was the archetypical cool, rugged indifference. When you actually read his work however, what you see is a deeply sensitive, perhaps frightened, wildly excitable man. In the end, I think it may have been that difference that came with his fame that wounded him the most. At the time, the world wanted one so badly that they refused to see the other.