On The Road by Jack Kerouac: A book review
Friday, August 3, 2012 | Steve Ferguson 
- Vancouver, British Columbia - In the years after World War II, the generation of young adults in the US were listless and without identity. Technology had advanced so rapidly, and with it, culture. Devastation and death never before seen had scarred the world, and there was unease about returning to life before the war. What did it mean to be a young person in those days? Jack Kerouac sought those answers, and spent years travelling to find himself in each corner of the country he could. With little money and even less direction, he would find himself drifting from place to place to meet up with friends and search for the intangible IT…that thing that would define his life. Along the way, Neal Cassady ingrained himself in Jack’s life and his selfish, shallow, womanizing, philosophic musings provided a contrast to Jack’s own observations about life on the road. The friendship was strange, but the two had an immense fascination with each other, and their adventures wound up defining them more than any single destination they arrived at.