Unearthed Kerouac play to be published
Excerpts of a never-before-seen play written by beat legend Jack Kerouac will be published for the first time in the July edition of a US magazine, it emerged today.
Beat Generation was discovered in a dusty Jersey City warehouse six months ago, long abandoned.
Written in 1957, the same year as his classic novel On the Road, it details a day in the drink and drug-fuelled life of Kerouac’s famed alter ego, Jack Duluoz.
It is due to be published as a book by Thunders Mouth Press in October but excerpts will also be in the July issue of Best Life magazine, according to the New York Post.
Kerouac’s agent, Sterling Lord, who recently re-discovered the play, said Kerouac had sent it to several producers but it has been shunned at every turn.
“It’s quite different,” he told the newspaper’s Page Six column. “But it conveys the mood of the time extraordinarily well, and also the characters are authentically drawn.
“Some people have compared it to some of the great European playwrights.” Mr Lord said Lillian Hellman had turned it down and it had even been sent to Marlon Brando.
Eventually, he said Kerouac asked him to shelve the play, which he did, filing it away in his warehouse where it lay for almost 50 years.
Best Life is a men’s health magazine.
