This work is the biography of legendary writer, poet, and Beat Generation icon Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), whose novel On the Road catapulted him to the forefront of the literary world and influenced budding writers for generations to come. It offers an integrated pastiche of his life and work. It investigates the key relationships that affected his development as an artist, including his three wives, numerous girlfriends, and beloved mother. In the 1940s and 1950s Kerouac relied on close companionship with like-minded artists and friends such as Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, and Neal Cassady - the inspiration for his most memorable character, Dean Moriarty. The text provides insight into Kerouac's spontaneous prose, with its echoes of jazz, in The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, Desolation Angels, and Mexico City Blues, as well as some of his lesser-known works, Book of Dreams, Some of the Dharma, and The Sea is My Brother.