|
|
As anyone who strolls down Jack Kerouac Lane can guess, San Francisco is a city
that relishes its literary memories.
In the 1950s, a flood of free-spirited writers rejecting the leaden conformity of
Cold War society traveled here to create the “San Francisco Renaissance.” These
bohemians congregated in the low-rent Italian neighborhood of North Beach, frequenting
the smoky jazz bars and cheap pasta joints in the area. The most famous resident
was Kerouac, author of On the Road, who coined the term “beat generation” to describe
his restless friends. The name came from underground slang and mixed a sense of
being downtrodden and rebellious, Kerouac said, with “beatific” and saintly. San
Francisco newspaper writer Herb Caen later transformed “beat” into the popular term
“beatnik” a few years later.
Kerouac arrived in San Francisco with his friend Neal Cassidy—who appears as the
character Dean Moriarty in On the Road—and poet Allen Ginsberg, who debuted his
epic poem Howl at a riotous reading in the neighborhood Six Gallery, a literary
event that turned into a famous all-night party. Today, the City Lights Bookstore
(at Columbus Avenue and Jack Kerouac Alley) is one of the city’s most beloved shrines.
It was founded in 1952 by beat poet Lawrence Ferlenghetti, and remains one of America’s
great bookstores. After browsing the collection, pull up a chair at the Vesuvio
Bar next door; in the 1950s, this was the beats’ favorite watering hole. It was
here that Kerouac was way-laid on his way to meet the great author of Tropic of
Cancer, Henry Miller. While the elderly Miller waited, Kerouac became too drunk
to leave. Kerouac’s boozing and willingness to push himself to the limits would
finally be his destruction. He died of complications due to alcoholism in 1969,
only 47 years old.
|
