Jack Kerouac in Brooklyn


Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives.

March 5, 1958, Vol. III, No. 19

The Day Kerouac Almost, But Not Quite, Took Flatbush

By James Breslin

[No, not that Jimmy Breslin — Tony O.]

“Man, how come I like your book, but I don’t like you?” This remark was made amid loud jeering while Jack Kerouac played “meet the author” last Tuesday evening for Brooklyn college students.


Jack, however, who had left Columbia “because I quite the football team and had to start paying tuition,” declined to make any pronouncements for the academy.

“What’s the beat generation’s outlook on life?”

“It’s an illusion.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s an illusion, not real–man, you ought to know, you go to college!”

The simmering hostility of the crowd boiled up as Kerouac identified his literary influences as Dostoevski and Walt Kelly. He calmly informed the Brooklynites that he wrote because he was bored, and published to make money.

Jack further declared that he was a story-teller and preacher, like Dostoevski, and that his writing, like a Chinaman, “spits forth intelligence.”

When a student inquired whether Kerouac was at present sober, Danny Price, one of Jack’s bushed entourage, broke in:

“There’s probably not one person in this room who doesn’t think he can write a book. But remember, this guy you’re putting down has written one.”

“Why don’t you answer our questions?” someone complained.

“I’m a Zen Master,” replied Kerouac.


Then the Kerouac group interrogated the crowd.

“What about love–nobody has even mentioned love?”

