Six Years Of Rejection

Jack Kerouac's original manuscript for his break-out novel is on display at University College Dublin. All 120 feet of it.

Legend has it, the author taped together pieces of paper until he had a long roll to string into his typewriter. Then he sat down and typed, words pouring off his fingers for twenty days. Then he started the publishing process.

Back in the 1950's, an author could approach a publisher and be rejected straight from the top, which happened to Jack Kerouac. On The Road was turned down, the thick scroll rejected, for six years.

Part of the problem was that Mr. Kerouac didn't want to edit his manuscript, not when he claimed that the whole thing had been dictated to him by the Holy Ghost Himself. Anyone studying the scroll and comparing it to the finished novel will realize that, third part of the Holy Trinity notwithstanding, the manuscript was heavily edited.

Kerouac scholars are salivating over the chance to access the original, to peruse the author's annotations, cross-outs and corrections. What better way to get a glimpse inside the mind of a writer than to study what was changed as compared to what was first put down on paper?

Six years of rejection, though. I have a ways to go.