Biography of Lowell, Massachusetts native, poet, and author, Jack Kerouac, widely known as a founding participant in the 20th century USA literary culture that came to be called the "Beat Movement," or the "Beat Generation." Kerouac's life from birth to early death; from Lowell, to New York, to San Francisco, to Denver, to Tampa and St. Petersburg, and back again. The cultural, interpersonal, and geographic contexts for his poetry and writings of autobiographical fiction. Anecdotes and aspects of his public and private lives, and where these lives changed and converged. Well-known for the biographer's extensive use of archival materials and interviews with Kerouac's contemporaries.