A place to write
A number of scholars of the Beat Generation have opined that Jack Kerouac’s mother, Gabrielle, was a negative influence on her son—“overbearing” is an image that is often projected in their criticism. It’s a criticism I reject in its every form and can often refute using Jack’s own words. An example follows.
Every writer needs a place to write. Granted, Kerouac wrote everywhere—in his little notebooks stuffed in his flannel shirt pockets, on scraps of paper, napkins, anything he could find. But his pockets couldn’t hold a typewriter. He needed a place to write—to pull all his notes together. In the late 1950s he wrote …1
At this time my mother was living alone in a little apartment in Jamaica, Long Island, working in the shoe factory, waiting for me to come home so I could keep her company and escort her to Radio City once a month. She had a tiny bedroom waiting for me, clean linen in the dresser, clean sheets in the bed. It was a relief after all the sleeping bags and bunks and railroad earth. It was another of the many opportunities she’s given me all her life just to stay home and write.
Of course, there’s more to the story of this mother’s love for her son, and of his for her. Somebody should find a place to write and tell that story.
Lonesome Traveler. Published in 1960.
No one loved Jack more than his mom. That's clear in On the Road.