Jan Kerouac

Studio 360

Writer Jack Kerouac was best known for his 1957 book On the Road, and the free spirited Beat was nobody's family man. Jan Kerouac only met her father twice, and as an adult she struggled to understand him. In 1989 Jan heard an archival recording of Jack Kerouac giving a talk, and radio producer Marjorie Van Halteren asked her to write a poem in response to it. They recorded it one cold winter night in New York.

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