On the Road was published in 1957 and became one of the most important American novels of the twentieth century. It is not, technically, a Route 66 novel. Kerouac and his friend Neal Cassady drove mostly on US 40 through the central states and varied their routes considerably. But On the Road drew on the same mythology that Route 66 had been building for thirty years, and the line between the two got blurred quickly.
What Kerouac captured — the jazz-inflected prose, the sense that any road could take you somewhere essential if you drove fast enough and stayed awake long enough — was the spirit of Route 66 even when the actual highway in question was different. He was writing about a relationship between Americans and their roads that Route 66 had, more than any other highway, defined.
The Beat Generation’s fascination with driving was a reaction against the suburban domesticity of postwar America. The road was the only space outside the prescribed narrative of job, house, family, repeat. On the road, you were nobody from nowhere, which meant you could be anyone going anywhere.
Kerouac wrote On the Road in three weeks on a 120-foot scroll of paper. The scroll still exists and has been exhibited in museums. It is a beautiful object — the physical evidence of a writer trying to outrun something by staying in motion.
Route 66 was already famous by the time Kerouac published. But his book gave the road-as-freedom idea its literary grammar, and that grammar has been quoted and imitated and argued with ever since. The road didn’t care whether he drove it or not. It was always there, waiting to be written about again.
We are offering licences for ROUTE 66® Beer in specific territories. An invitation to others to become part of this story. To carry a piece of the road with them and to contribute to the story. We will share a percentage of royalties with Route 66 associations to keep the story alive.
The journey continues. This story is brought to you by ROUTE 66® BEER. Find us at ROUTE66BEER.COM
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