by Arthur S. Nusbaum © 1993

I wrote this densely footnoted (61, count ’em, 61!) essay during 1992-3. It focuses on a passage right in the middle of Kerouac’s On the Road text as first published in 1957; the author (“Sal Paradise”) along with Neal Cassady (“Dean Moriarty”) visits with William S. Burroughs (“Old Bull Lee”) & his family in Algiers, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans in early 1949. A close reading of this passage finds that it condenses & anticipates most of the significant themes of WSB’s life & work.

Read this essay below, or click on this link: Kerouac Meets Burroughs On the Road

Fine First Editions of many of the biographical & critical works cited are available at Third Mind Books. A chapbook version of the essay is available for purchase in store or online also.