Jack Kerouac's back: hometown exhibition shows writer’s homely side
Items that 'tell the story of Kerouac's life', from knick-knacks on his desk to records and cat carriers, go on show in Lowell, in the US state of Massachusetts, where writer was born
The eclectic bric-a-brac that comforted and inspired writer Jack Kerouac is going on the road.
“Kerouac Retrieved”, an exhibition of the clutter that surrounded Kerouac at the simple wooden desk in the US state of Florida where he wrote many of his works, opens on Thursday in the author’s hometown of Lowell, in the US state of Massachusetts.
It’s a hotchpotch of personal items: family photos, Christian and Buddhist figurines, a Frank Sinatra album, cat carriers he fashioned by hand. Kerouac experts at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, which is hosting the show, say the items help humanise the Beat Generation icon who wrote On the Road, The Dharma Bums and other celebrated works.
“Actually touching something he touched – it’s really an uncanny experience,” said Michael Millner, a UMass-Lowell professor who runs the school’s Jack and Stella Kerouac Centre for Public Humanities.
