But it is not just a record of crazy hipsters and wandering tramps. This novel is often cited as the hallmark of the “beat generation” - a term Kerouac despised. I had gotten over a serious illness that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with the miserably weary split-up and my feeling that everything was dead.” This central character of Kerouac’s On the Road, Dean Moriarty, based on Kerouac’s friend Neal Cassady, embodies America, its criminal heart, its shuddering sex-crazed body, and its mad hobo soul. So they were kind of drawn together like magnets.“I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. Whereas Cassady was the living embodiment of electricity, Kerouac was the intelligence and the grace and the quiet fortitude that he lacked. They both saw in each other what they wanted to be but couldn’t actualize. “From what I understand of Kerouac, he was obviously a brilliant man but very shy. On what Cassady and Kerouac saw in each other:
He wanted to advance himself, and even at a young age, I think he recognized that the written word was going to be his savior." He spent a lot of time at the Denver Public Library. And so, Neal basically raised himself, but there was always a quest for knowledge, a quest for betterment. His mother was emotionally absent with several other children to take care of. His father was an alcoholic who would work when he was sober, enough to keep them in and out of flophouses. “There were a lot of people who would take advantage of a young child left to his own devices, in basically what was Denver’s skid row at the time. It's major, major news sweeping the entire community." It was rumored to have been thrown off of a boat in Sausalito. This is a letter is of such mythic proportions, that no one ever thought that this would be found. On the importance of the “Joan Anderson” letter: Director Heather Dalton spoke with "Colorado Matters'" Ryan Warner. 22 on Colorado Public Television (Denver Channel 12). Meanwhile, a new documentary about Neal Cassady, focusing on his life in Denver, will have its broadcast premiere on Dec. 17, but has been canceled amid a mire of legal claims. The letter was scheduled to be sold at auction on Dec. Cassady wrote it to Kerouac in December 1950 and Kerouac later said it was the inspiration for “On the Road’s” spontaneous prose style. One of those letters, long thought to be missing, has resurfaced. Cassady wasn’t a published author, but he did write long, confessional letters to his friends. Kerouac based the character on his friend Neal Cassady, who grew up in a series of Denver flophouses in the 1930s. The hero of “On the Road,” Jack Kerouac’s groundbreaking 1957 novel, is a prolific car thief and charmer named Dean Moriarty. This interview originally aired Dec 15, 2014. (Photo: Courtesy of Heather Dalton and Neal Cassady Estate)
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