Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-98).

Fast this time : Jack Kerouac and the writing of On the road / Howard Cunnell -- Rewriting America : Kerouac's nation of "underground monsters" / Penny Vlagopoulos -- "Into the heart of things" : Neal Cassady and the search for the authentic / George Mouratidis -- "The straight line will take you only to death" : the scroll manuscript and contemporary literary theory / Joshua Kupetz -- On the road : the original scroll.

Fast this time : Jack Kerouac and the writing of On the road / Howard Cunnell -- Rewriting America : Kerouacs nation of "underground monsters" / Penny Vlagopoulos -- "Into the heart of things" : Neal Cassady and the search for the authentic / George Mouratidis -- "The straight line will take you only to death" : the scroll manuscript and contemporary literary theory / Joshua Kupetz -- On the road : the original scroll.

Though Jack Kerouac began thinking about the novel that was to become On the Road as early as 1947, it was not until three weeks in April 1951, in an apartment on West Twentieth Street in Manhattan, that he wrote the first full draft that was satisfactory to him. Typed out as one long, single-spaced paragraph on eight long sheets of tracing paper that he later taped together to form a 120 foot scroll, this document is among the most significant, celebrated, and provocative artifacts in contemporary American literary history. It represents the first full expression of Kerouacs revolutionary aesthetic, the identifiable point at which his thematic vision and narrative voice came together in a sustained burst of creative energy. It was also part of a wider vital experimentation in the American literary, musical, and visual arts in the post-World War II period..._From Publisher Description.