Unpublished Jack Kerouac story found in Mafia boss auction: “Very significant”
A previously unpublished story by Jack Kerouac, described as a “very significant” addition to his work, has been uncovered at an auction of the belongings of a former Mafia crime boss.
The two-page manuscript, titled The Holy, Beat, and Crazy Next Thing, has been branded “a lost chapter of the On the Road saga” and was found to have been amongst the files of the assassinated crime boss Paul Castellano for the past 40 years.
The work, which is a typewritten manuscript signed by Kerouac in a green pen, was discovered when Castellano’s belongings were being searched and disposed of last year. It is dated as April 15th, 1957, which is five months before the author’s seminal On The Road was published.
Castellano was the head of the notorious Gambino family in New York, overseeing their gang from 1976 until he was shot dead at the end of 1985. It is not known how he came to be in possession of Kerouac’s unpublished manuscript.
The company Your Own Museum, who now owns the manuscript, said in comments published by The Guardian: “It has remained in private hands, meticulously preserved, for over six decades. It is a direct, tangible link to the moment the beat generation exploded into the American consciousness.”
They added: “As was his known practice during this fertile time, he [Kerouac] would often produce unique, typewritten pamphlets and chapbooks – sometimes referred to as ‘brochures’ by his circle – for friends, lovers and patrons,” noting how these often weren’t intended for public consumption but as “gifts” for those closest to him.
Similarly, Dave Moore, a research scholar of Kerouac, also said the discovery was “very significant” as the date meant it could have coincided with one of the author’s visits to the UK.
Being described as a “lost chapter” which fits into the timeline of On the Road, the opening of the story reads as follows: “We hit Denver with the gas gauge kissing empty and the Hudson coughing dust from a thousand desert miles. It was that wild, holy, and crazy time when Dean and I were inseparable, two halves of a lost and found coin, and Marylou was with us, a sad-eyed angel in a too-tight sweater. The money was gone, spent on gas and cheap wine and a wild night in a Tucson motel that ended with a fistfight and a sprint to the car. Now we are broke, the sky was the colour of a dirty nickel, and a mean mountain wind cut down Larimer Street.”
