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The History of Literature
722 Kerouac's Road - A Conversation with Ebs Burnough, Director of a New Kerouac Documentary | My Last Book with Beat Generation Expert Steven Belletto
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- [00:02]
Jack Wilson
The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio. Hey folks, it's Jack. Here to promote something that's a little special. Not a thing and not a service, an opportunity for you to have an experience. The History of Literature Podcast is going on the road and you can join us. Our first stop is literary England, the land of Dr. Johnson and Jane Austen and Tolkien and C.S. lewis. Oh, and Dickens. Oh, and Shakespeare. Perhaps you've heard of him. This isn't a trip where you march from site to site checking off boxes. Seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it.
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Emma
This is a week plus, a little.
- [00:46]
Jack Wilson
More traveling with me and Emma and a group of other fans of literature. All of us enjoying our conversations, our chance to learn and grow and be inspired by these writers and their works that we love so much. With special visits along the way from past guests of the show, your favorites who will deepen our appreciation for what we're seeing. So please consider it. We would love to have you. You can learn more by going to John Shores Travel, that's S H O R S. And look for the upcoming trip to England with Jack Wilson. Or reach out to us@historyofliterature.com and we will tell you all the details. It's going to be in May of 2026, but act now to secure your spot. Space is limited and let's all spend some quality time together enjoying literature and enjoying life.
- [01:39]
N/A
On WhatsApp. No one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone.
- [02:08]
Ebs Brno
Hello.
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Emma
Coming up today on the podcast, a.
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Jack Wilson
New documentary about Jack Kerouac shows some Americans in the 21st century finding their way on the road. We'll talk to the director, Ebs Berno. Plus we talked to an expert in Kerouac and the Beat Generation, Stephen Belleto, about his choice for the last book he will ever read. Will he turn to on the Road or something else by the Beats or take an off ramp into some new territory? All that today on the history of literature.
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Emma
Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast.
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Jack Wilson
I'm Jack Wilson. I'm glad you're here today. A shorter episode today, Short and sweet, let's call it. Because lately They've been gargantuan long and bitter.
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Emma
Ah, we had all that diamond as.
- [03:12]
Jack Wilson
Big as the ritzing to do and then Madame Bovary and couldn't your ears use a break? Have you been traveling? While you're listening, I wonder. Summer is so full of journeys. It's such a time for a journey. With summer vacation built in a little plug for our History of Literature podcast tour in Literary England next spring. I'll just sneak that in here. I know we run ads for it too, but I really do hope that you'll join us. Spots are still available as far as I know. I haven't checked lately, but think there's still some room. Reach out to us@jackwilsonauthormail.com for more details. That's J A C K E wilsonauthormail.com or go check out the itinerary at johnshorestravel. That's S H O R S no E. Okay, as it happens, I was at a friend's house the other night. It was pouring rain, flash flood warnings. Thanks to our debilitated weather service, we get no advance notice of this stuff anymore. In the morning it said the skies would be clear all day, but suddenly it's pouring rain and my phone is screeching with a last minute warning and Emma's phone is screeching and she and I are on our way to some friend's house and the rain is flooding down the roads like a river. We park the car and we both have. She and I both have the same idea. We can't ford this river. Our shoes and socks will be soaked. So instead we hop up onto the lawn and we start moonwalking. Moonwalking like in the Neil Armstrong sense, not the Michael Jackson sense. We start giant hopping our way across the lawn and it turns out the lawn is saturated with water and our feet sink up to our calves. And now we're at the house, on the porch, soaking wet, headed for a night of wet feet. It was a mini journey, let's say. Why am I telling you the story? Because this guy, our friend, the host, host of our evening there, our dinner party, listens to the podcast and he had met this other friend of mine at a different dinner party. And that other friend was talking about how on the road had changed his life. He was one of those guys who read the book when he was in his late teens and suddenly college and his future did not seem so appetizing. So he headed west. He rode the rails box car to box car back in the early 1990s, he traveled around America dreaming of Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassidy, looking for those secrets to open up. And now at this dinner party, the host, who didn't have a youthful past with that in it he had gone to college, had become a member of a respected profession. And he said, yeah, I read on the Road. I've been reading on the Road. It sound like you'd been reading it for weeks. It was clear that the book had not registered as one of his favorites. He said, I finally finished it. And then he said, the title kind of gave me the whole book. You know, they were on the Road. Well, I don't think that's maybe the case. That's maybe not giving that book enough credit, as we'll talk about with Yves BRNO when he comes out here. But it was clear that this book on the Road was not for him. This man in his early 50s, I think, late 40s maybe. And then he asked Emma, my sweet partner, and she said, yeah, it's never been her favorite either. And I know, listeners, that it is a favorite with a lot of you. The fascination with Kerouac endures because every time we do an episode on Jack Kerouac, it is incredibly popular. But I also think that Emma's response and my dinner party host's response are.
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Emma
Kind of typical, too.
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Jack Wilson
Kerouac has passionate fans, even acolytes. And then there's a criticism, and there's a response to the criticism. And I think this documentary kind of embraces all three in an unusual and refreshing way. So let's unpack what I mean before we talk to EBS Brno. I should say that in the mid-1990s, I used to teach some Kerouac. I was. I was a course assistant for a course called the Beat Generation at the University of Michigan.
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Emma
And in creative writing courses, I used.
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Jack Wilson
To show a documentary called what Happened to Kerouac every semester, which is a fascinating intro. The Beat Generation was very popular with young people. So I've seen a lot of students interacting with Kerouac's pros. And the idea of Jack Kerouac as an iconic figure. This was a while ago, and I've gotten older, too. The excitement that a lot of people feel. I'll call this the paradigmatic Kerouacian experience is that there's a way to live. This is what on the Road kind of points you toward. There's a way to live, a way to be, a freedom that can come from setting aside society's expectations and rules and conventions, and that the embodiment of that freedom, that lust for freedom, is just to move, start moving, get out there. Maybe your parents or your teachers or society as a whole, maybe everybody, all the authority figures want you to get a nice job and settle down and start paying your taxes and, and get a mortgage, maybe have a family, be a productive member of society. And in the late 1940s and 1950s, the pressure, it seems, was enormous. The war was over. People were home. Time to rebuild society. This was the era of the man in the gray flannel suit. And if you're young, say you're a teenager and you see this coming, or if it's time to go to college, or maybe you're out of college or about to graduate from college and you see what's coming and you say, hang on, why? Why do I have to do this? Isn't there more to life? Isn't there more to see and do? Those jobs look soul crushing. They look deadening. I don't think I can put on a necktie and go to an office every day. I'm a poet or a drummer or a visionary. I like hanging around with my friends. I want to do more. This book, on the Road says, follow that impulse. You only live once, you might never get another chance. It's fun to throw out the rulebook and go see places you've never seen before. And you, as an individual on this planet deserve it, need it, go get it now. The criticism of that, of the on the road message says, okay, right? That's great for you, Mr. Kerouac, young middle class guy. But who's paying for this? Your parents? Your aunt? Or maybe you're going to steal cars like Neil Cassidy, who was Kerouac's great muse. What about the people who worked hard to buy those cars? Have you thought of them? Did you thank them for making those cars out there for you to steal?
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Emma
Or were you too busy being a.
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Jack Wilson
Poet or a drummer or whatever you think you are? Were you too busy doing that to think about the hard work that went into those buying that car and what.
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Emma
Happens when that person doesn't have a.
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Jack Wilson
Car to get to work? So go ahead and be a free spirit. But some of us don't have this choice. Some of us don't have families to float us money. We have responsibilities, bills to pay. Maybe people are already depending on us even at our young age. Or as in the case of my host who read this book for the first time as a grown up man with three kids, it seems awfully irresponsible. How does society function if everyone is out joyriding? Who will pay for all this? And then there's the criticism which was levied by Emma. This wasn't a trip that she could take as a woman. There are dangers that women or people of color might face traveling through the America of that era, of Kerouac's time, or the America now, for that matter. Let's not gloss over that. On the Road might be fine as a description of what Kerouac did, but as a call to action, as a kind of holy text. Well, it maybe fails to recognize that this is something only available to a certain group of people. The response to that is to say, well, Kerouac was talking about something more than just his literal journey. He's talking about a state of mind. It's a philosophical outlook. It's the road as a metaphor. But even more than that, it's. It's telling you to maximize your time on earth, to let yourself be dazzled by sunsets and stars, to really embrace encounters with people and challenges and new things. You might take on a job because you have those responsibilities. And maybe you can't participate in the wilder aspects of Kerouac's journey through middle America. You're not going to be hitchhiking or riding on boxcars. But that doesn't mean you have to settle. It doesn't mean you have to wind up in a static existence. Don't settle for stasis. You don't need to drift through life as if it's some inevitable, foreordained, preordained routine. Days can still be seized. So enter Ebes BRNO and his new documentary, which is called Kerouac's Road the Beat of a Nation. It promises to take a 21st century look at what it means to go out on the road in America today. How does the Kerouacian dream still resonate if it does? I watched the documentary. I've seen it twice, actually, and part of it surprised me and part of it was what I expected. Here's what I expected. It had a lot of Kerouac biographical information with footage and photos. It was all very well done. Excellent. It's an excellent introduction to who Jack Kerouac was. With the help of professors and writers and actors and others who can help us put all this in perspective. And in that sense, it's a fairly straightforward Kerouac documentary, a time tested formula for a documentary, and it's well done and it delivers on all that. But then there's something different too. It also follows the Stories of three American or sets of Americans who are taking a journey. There is Diana, a lesbian in her 60s, who left her parents when she was quite young and who is now returning to see her father, aged 91, whom she has barely seen. I think she said she's. She's seen her parents. She saw her parents three times in 50 years. Her father had been abusive when she lived there as a teenager, but now she's trying to reach some kind of peaceful position with him and as she puts it, trying to be a good daughter.
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Emma
It's a heartwarming story or potential story.
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Jack Wilson
You feel for her. And she's out there on the road. Her trip on the road. It's not young Sal paradise and Dean Moriarty, the stand ins for Kerouac and Cassidy out there trying to make their passage into manhood. But it's a real journey in a real America. Nevertheless, where will the road lead her? Then there's a couple. She is black and he's of Cuban descent. He was born in Cuba and came over when he was 2. He has a Purple Heart from fighting in the Iraq war. And the two of them have responsibilities as parents and as children themselves with their own parents. But they have a van set up for travel and they love to head out on the road and escape for what seems to be weeks or months at a time. Actually, actually, the woman, Tenaj, I think her name is, she loves being on the road. And Tino is the name of her husband. He doesn't like the road so much, but he likes the destinations. So that's an interesting contrast. That's kind of the two different ways of thinking of travel. Is the destination the journey or is the journey a means to get to the destination? That's deep in Kerouac, too. Kerouac, we hear in the documentary, always idealized his destination and then was always disappointed by it. Find something wrong once he was there, you get the sense that the movement and the journey was more important for him too. Also feeds into some of his Buddhist tendencies, inclinations. We'll say he was very much a Catholic all his life, ridden by guilt, but always had that Buddhist impulse, at least when he was in his 30s, 20s and 30s. Okay, so anyway, back to Tino and Tenaj. They're sorting through their relationship now that they're empty nesters, so to speak. And you get the sense that he's a glass half full guy and she's how much of a glass half full guy is he at one point? He wasn't always a glass half full Guy, he experienced a lot of trauma when he came home from the Iraq war. And for a while he describes himself during that period. And he's almost unrecognizable from how he is on the screen today. He's so cheerful on the screen, optimistic. But it sounds like when he first came home, things were pretty dark. But now he's a glass half full guy. He's so glass half full that at one point she says, you know, he says, I don't understand how any people. Why couples break up when they become empty nesters. And she says, well, it's because they view that they were staying together to raise the kids, and now that the kids are gone, maybe they don't have as much in common anymore. And he says, what does that mean, now that the kids are gone, I don't like you no more. How can that be? That makes no sense to me. And she says, well, people can drift apart, you know. And he says, yeah, but you can drift apart together. And she says, can you? And I thought drifting apart, but do it together. That is glass half full. And Tenaje's not glass half empty, exactly. She's more of a, well, even if the glass is half full now, what's it going to be next year or the year after that? Is it still going to be glass half full? We need to keep growing. Our relationship needs to evolve as we grow. And he says, we will, and it will. But they're working through what that is going to mean. Well, that's story number two. What does the road mean for them? And then there's a family from Philadelphia, a black family who live in the kind of neighborhood where children are taken by stray bullets and mothers fear random tragedies more than anything else, but who also have to find a way to live life and raise children without succumbing to fear and anxiety and pessimism. This group is headed down to Atlanta to drop off their college age son at Morehouse. And while the son is the age of a Kerouacian hero, we see that the rest of the family, especially his mother, is going on her journey as well on this car trip, the journey of dropping off a child. These three vignettes that I've just described are interwoven into the story of Kerouac's biography and the descriptions of the novel, the novel on the Road, its strengths and its flaws. And there's not a lot of discussion of on the Road, the novel or Kerouac the writer in these vignettes. It's not as if the point is to say, oh wow, you're stopping at a rest stop, here's what Jack Kerouac said about rest stops. No, the people aren't all carrying around Kerouac's books as they travel. But the point is made by the adjacency. If Kerouac stood for anything at all, it was this idea of the car on the road leading you to a new place in America. His trips were something like 75 years ago. How much have we absorbed his example and his spirit? And what's it like for us to see people on the road today knowing what we know about Kerouac and being reminded of what we know, or learning new things about Kerouac as we watch these journeys? It's a refreshing approach to a documentary and I enjoyed it. And then I was fortunate enough to talk to the filmmaker, Ebbs Bruno. A conversation that you will hear after this. This is an ad by BetterHelp. Folks, there's a lot of noise out there and information coming at you all the time and it's hard to know where to turn. Somehow you've got to find a way to set some boundaries and cope. You want to be the best version of yourself. That's the goal.
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- [22:31]
Jack Wilson
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- [23:21]
Emma
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- [23:25]
Jack Wilson
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- [23:28]
Emma
I can't wear the same thing all the time.
- [23:31]
Jack Wilson
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Emma
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Jack Wilson
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Emma
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Jack Wilson
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- [24:27]
Ceedee Lamb
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Emma
Okay? Joining me now is EBS brno, who is a filmmaker, writer and producer who.
- [25:19]
Jack Wilson
Is also a former White House deputy social secretary and senior administrator advisor to First Lady Michelle Obama.
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Emma
He's here today to discuss his documentary.
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Jack Wilson
Kerouac's the Beat of a Nation, which.
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Emma
Examines how Kerouac's iconic novel on the.
- [25:33]
Jack Wilson
Road continues to resonate in contemporary America. EBS brno, welcome to the History of Literature.
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Ebs Brno
Thank you for having me. Thrilled to be here.
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Emma
So I found your approach to the Kerouac documentary to be kind of what I expected, but also to have some completely new elements that I'm excited to ask you about. But let's start with you. When did you first read Jack Kerouac?
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Ebs Brno
I first read Jack Kerouac when I was 16. I read it in school.
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Emma
And was it on the Road?
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Ebs Brno
It was. It was the first. Yeah. I mean, I read others, but on the Road I read at 16. Yeah. Dr. Kathy Scott demanded I read. You remember those teachers?
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Emma
Did it resonate with you at that age? I mean, I hear from a lot of people who read it in that kind of of sweet spot between 14 or 15 and maybe 23 or 24. And it can really have a life changing impact. And I just talked to a friend who read it for the first time and he's in his mid-50s and it didn't have quite the same resonance for him. Were you someone who was reading it and felt like you wanted to, you felt yourself responding in a certain way?
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Ebs Brno
The funny thing is Actually, no. When I read it, I thought it was. I thought there were elements of it that were beautiful and that were brilliant, et cetera, but I did not feel that kind of. I wasn't drawn to it the way some of my classmates and friends were. And I think part of that was for me. I was 16, black, not out of the closet in Northern Florida, in Tallahassee, Florida. And I didn't feel very much like. I didn't feel very much like I could get on the road and do that. And that seemed far away from me, and so I didn't have that. And part of what this film for me has been about was about thinking about all the people who, in 1957, couldn't go on the road and really being able to expand that road that is all of ours and just kind of open up the road a little bit more as. And therefore opening up the book a little bit more as we are in the 21st century.
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Emma
Yeah, well, that really does come across. And I think W. Kamau Bell has a line where he says, the way that they go on the road and go to all of these different places in middle America, and he says, I wouldn't have done that in the 1950s. And he said, I wouldn't do that today.
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Ebs Brno
Yeah, I mean, I think there, you know, he's very honest about that, and I think there's some truth in that for a lot of people.
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Emma
Yeah. Okay, so you. Then it seems clear you have a different kind of approach to take to the film, and it comes out of your experience. And that's what I was really struck by, is the way that you're telling the story of these journeys of. Of Americans that aren't necessarily kind of the paradigmatic Kerouacian. You know, a white male age 22 or 23 decides, I'm gonna. I see what society's expecting from me. I don't want to follow that path. I'm gonna go down kind of a live outside of these expectations and the conventions that are here for me. But you. You don't really have. Even among the three journeys, you don't really have that kind of experience. So what made you decide to tell the stories that you do tell?
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Ebs Brno
Well, I think one, it was. The book, for me, is very much also about coming of age and growing up. Right. You know, the beginning of the book is so young and youthful and hopeful and kind of the middle of the book, you know, there's some rough times. You know, it's like I got my tin sandwiches and I'm on the bus and I got no money left. And it's kind of like this, you know, the middle there is some of the tough stuff of growing up. And the end to me is kind of Sal's becoming very much an adult to a degree and kind of perhaps leaving Dean behind. And that to me was also the life cycle. So for me, Emir was very much the beginning of the book. And his journey with his mom and sister taking him down to Morehouse for college embodied that beginning hopefulness. And Tino, who I have great affection for Tino and Tinaj, but you know, Tino, who came to America at the age of two from Cuba and did two tours of duty in Iraq and is quite conservative and married to Tinaj, who is quite liberal and the last child's out of the house and they sold everything and they're traveling in their sprinter van across the country, not really knowing where they're going, you know, figuring out what their relationship is. Post children, you know, is very much the middle of life. And Diana, with this very fractured history with her father and going back, you know, she's 68 at the time, to see this 91 year old man that she's seen three times in 50 years is very much, you know, it's an end of life story. So I wanted to try and tell that life cycle to a degree. And I also felt like you expect on the road, you expect it to be exactly what you described. And I think Matt Dillon and Josh Brolin, I think that crew kind of still holds up that end of the bargain. And I think the important thing that I really wanted with the film was to be sure that I'm not trying to take it away from or the experience. I'm not trying to take it away from that 20something white guy who goes out on the road. I think that's fantastic for him to have that experience. But gosh, how interesting for all the people who couldn't do that in 1957 to have that same bite at the apple today. That to me is also the exciting part about progress and development in America in particular.
- [31:53]
Emma
It's almost like on the road we're so used to now. It's the book that when we do hear people who have that, what I called the paradigmatic Kerouacian experience, we also kind of roll our eyes a little bit because we know the criticism of that as well is, well, that was great for him, but it wasn't so great for the women he left behind. There's a quote in your documentary by Kerouac's former girlfriend. That was just. It gave me goose flesh. The way that she said it, where the question was asked of her, what were the consequences? She said, there were consequences for women. We couldn't. If we got pregnant, we maybe face death. And the question was put to her, what were the consequences for the men? And she said, none. There were none. So there is this kind of built in criticism that a lot of people have, and maybe when they get a little older, they look back at it on the road and think, well, that's kind of a nice thing to do, but everyone has responsibilities. And we know that this wasn't an opportunity that was available to just anyone. But then there's the kind of counter criticism which is, well, on the Road is actually kind of bigger than that, too. It's not just about what these guys are doing and kind of the adventure story of it, but it's about more of a state of mind and about kind of a spiritual journey. And what I liked about your documentary, by having these three stories of other people who aren't kind of following the Kerouac adventure, it really opens it up to let us see. Well, here's people who. Maybe they aren't even reading Kerouac, and they're definitely not in the same demographic group and that kind of thing, but they are having an on the road experience that Kerouac would probably recognize 100%.
- [33:50]
Ebs Brno
I also think the concept of going on the road has become so ubiquitous that people do it without even understanding that they're also doing something that Kerouac inspired them to do, even if they don't know who Kerouac is. Right. You know, I remember when my son said, oh, I want to take a gap year. I said, oh, what are you thinking you're gonna do? And he had. He was like, I'm gonna do some driving here. A little bit of this. A little bit. And I was like, well, have you. You know, you're gonna do your on the road thing? And he's like, I haven't read it. And I was like, well, you're not doing a gap year unless you read on the road. So, you know, it has become a big part of not just American culture, but global culture, that concept. And I think we are all on our own individual roads. We're on our own individual paths, and yet we go out into the world and we bump into one another, and that's what makes it all so rich. And so to me, what the book really signifies and what I hope the film signifies is there's more that brings us together than there is that tears us apart. There is a community of, you know, I was with Diana in, I don't know, maybe we were in New Mexico at a, you know, at an RV park. And I would see anti Biden bumper stickers or pro Biden, anti Trump bumper stickers or what have you. And yet all of these people, despite gender, you know, politics, whatever, identity, all these people actually were interacting with one another so beautifully. And they were talking about, where's the best place to get a chicken fried steak? Or where's the best place, oh, go to Cadillac Ranch. You got to go and check that out if you, when you're going through this place. So I think there's, in this moment where we're constantly fractured, I actually think there's a lot more that brings us together than tears us apart. And that happens. We're all on our individual road, but these roads that we're on, that's where that magic still happens.
- [35:50]
Emma
Yeah, it's almost like New York City can be such a leveler that you get there and it's like you're encountering the city. You're all kind of surviving the city and navigating the city. And it doesn't matter what someone's politics are or their age or their health or whatever it is, you're kind of all in it together. And it hadn't occurred to me before, but the road is kind of like that too, where you might get out somewhere and you say, well, we've got two hours to the next gas station. And I guess so.
- [36:20]
Jack Wilson
Do you.
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Ebs Brno
Precisely, exactly. Exactly. And you see people trading their knowledge and sharing it, and it's a really. All across the country, we were everywhere. And so you're in Native American land and you're in cities, and then you're on a rural farm road. It's vast and extraordinary.
- [36:45]
Emma
Now, I also don't want to lose sight of the fact that the Kerouac documentary, your documentary includes a lot about Kerouac, and it tells his story and it talks a lot about his writing. And you also take on a lot of his flaws. And what do you think his most passionate fans and followers tend to overlook?
- [37:08]
Ebs Brno
Well, I think his most passionate fans and followers tend to overlook the fact that Jack, this is a person who, you know, was living in a different time. I think we all, whether you're a passionate Kerouac fan or not, or whether you find, as we talk about in the film, whether you find certain elements of the writing, whether it be the misogyny or, you know, or many things, whether you find them off putting, you know, I still think we can be able. And we should really try to be able to hold two things at the same time. You. I can read that book and see its brilliance and find its meaning for me. And I can also say, gosh, you know, that was a. That was a real different time. I'm glad we don't talk like that anymore. I'm glad we've evolved to have, you know, hopefully. I'm glad we've evolved to have a stronger respect for women and intellect or people of color or what, you know, any number of things. But it doesn't mean that I can't hold the positives and the negatives at the same time. And I think that's one of the things that you get people who want to completely dismiss something or cancel it, and then you have other people who want to ignore the problematic elements. And I think the right thing for me has always been to acknowledge brilliance, acknowledge flaws, and move on and take the best that I can get out of anything.
- [38:44]
Emma
This made me feel a little old, but I got it, and I was kind of appreciated it. But when I. Natalie Merchant had a really interesting observation where she said that, you know, she criticizes not only that the women. There aren't that many women characters, but that they're not written very well and they kind of have no dimension. And then she said that her kids can't really stand the misogyny, but she herself lived through it, that era, and she gets it. And it's almost like she knew how to filter it out in a way that her. It didn't sound like her kids maybe did. And that kind of made me feel like, yeah, those of us who maybe came to kerouac in the 80s and 90s kind of have a different way of reading and a different way of kind of putting that into a sort of perspective of people we maybe grew up with as our parents age and our grandparents age, and just kind of the world that we were used to, completely true.
- [39:46]
Ebs Brno
We, you know, and that looks. That's the evolution of culture. That's the evolution of politics, the evolution of a country and a world. And so, yes, I completely hear you and agree with you. It's a reality. And yet I really still push and say to my own kids, you know, you still. You still got to read it, and if nothing else, acknowledge and understand when it was written, why it was written and why having that history and having that ability to understand those times why that's essential. You know, that literature still remains essential and it's history. And if we don't talk about history and we're not honest about it, then we are destined somehow to repeat it, particularly a lot of the bad stuff. So I think the more we can shine a light and have honest and focused conversations, that's the better.
- [40:46]
Emma
And there is a lot to give Kerouac credit for, too. There's a lot of complexity that can kind of raise interesting topics. And I mean, he had such an unusual background with his French language background and the way that he grew up and then his journey to New York City and his friendships with the people he met there. And kind of his sexuality that kind of is, is blurring with all of the different people that he's with. Neil Cassidy and Allen Ginsberg and so on. And so it's. It maybe is something that he's writing against or writing around or not necessarily putting in, but it's also still kind of there. And then also his, like, his love for jazz and his, you know, there's a lot in there where you can say, this would be an interesting book to teach to understand the late 40s and 50s, I think 100%.
- [41:39]
Ebs Brno
And I think, look, I think part of the thing with Kerouac, certainly for myself when I started this journey, was I didn't know that much about Jack Kerouac. I mean, I, like I said, I read, but I didn't know that much about the man. And on the face of it, literally, and it's. He's this very, you know, good looking, masculine football player, football playing, you know, white guy who's at Columbia. And you think, like, what am I going to learn? Like, it's written. It's written on the side of the box. Okay, I get it. And yes, you know, really, you know, not speaking English until he was 6 or 7, being from an immigrant family, really and truly, always feeling like an outsider. And that all informs so much of who he is, and it informs so much of why he was on the road. He was on the road to find out how he fit into this country that he didn't feel like he really belonged to. And so that in and of itself, it makes you say, oh, now I feel really bad because I looked at a picture and I made a judgment off of a photo. I made a judgment about who you are, and I thought I knew all about you just off of one photo. And gosh, how angry would I be if someone did that to me? And so I think that was for me one of the really eye opening things in this journey in the sense that I had to also learn to check myself on my own, perhaps implicit bias or not even bias my own opinion of what I think something is or who I think someone is based off of basic facts without digging a little deeper. And he's much richer than that.
- [43:28]
Emma
Let's take a quick break and come back with more from EBS brno.
- [43:46]
N/A
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- [44:50]
Emma
Okay, we're back. So if I had watched this documentary when I was 20, I probably would have found the most in common with the young man from Philadelphia who is headed off to college. And instead I find myself, I'm a few weeks away from driving my youngest son to college and dropping him off. And I found myself. The journey that resonated with me the most was the journey of the moment, taking her son. And you know, you watch these movies and I know that the son is the hero. He's the protagonist, right? He's the one who's going on the quest narrative and the adventure is going to be his. The spirit of Kerouac has to be with him. But the mom is on a journey too.
- [45:35]
Ebs Brno
We all, I'll tell you, the crew, when we dropped him off and we were all at dinner the night before and his mom gave this toast and we have some of that in the film. I mean, we were all sobbing, we were all in tears.
- [45:51]
Emma
I was choked up too, watching.
- [45:53]
Ebs Brno
We were all in tears dropping Amir off at Morehouse. I mean it was literally, it was such a moment. And it goes back to again, there is something in the film and I think that's the magic of the book that everyone should be able to walk away with something that resonates with them in some way. It's because we're all on our own personal journey. Yes. I mean, Carlin, his mom, is. She is on a journey that is hers, that is tied to him, and she's got to let him go, as she says so beautifully. But that's also part of that middle part, you know what I mean? That middle part of the life cycle. You know, he's in the beginning. She's kind of like Tino and tinaj. She's in the middle. And it gets a little messy. There's. It's like when you're on the road, it's not always. The sun is not always shining. There is rain and sleet and snow, but you keep going.
- [46:45]
Emma
Yeah, you have a professor. I missed his name. But he makes this really clear when he has the observation that Kerouac, whose first language was French, when it came time to translate on the Road into French, he was supportive of the translation of that basically translates to on the Way or on the Path, which is a totally different title. It really would kind of tilt us more toward the spiritual journey instead of just the physical adventure of jumping onto boxcars and hitchhiking and all of that. It really is like the way I recommend this book to people is, well, this is about how to live your life. This is about living your life to the fullest.
- [47:33]
Ebs Brno
That's right.
- [47:33]
Emma
And that really comes through in that. That anecdote about the translation.
- [47:38]
Ebs Brno
No, it is really about. It is your journey and what are you going to do with it and how are you going to do it? Sal's journey in the book is, you know, it's still very youthful. It's still. But it's his journey and he's learning along the way. You know what I mean? We're all learning along the way. And I think one of the things that I really loved about this was just to give a full circle context. Natalie Merchant was, you know, she had written, when she was a 10,000 maniacs, she had written the song hey, Jack Kerouac. And she was so kind and said, you know, she was going to be interviewed for the film and. And so forth. And then she said, you know, when I wrote that, I had just finished reading Joyce Johnson's book Minor Characters, and they had never met. And so they got to meet at the film screening at Tribeca. And so it was like a full circle moment. And then Natalie, I'd sent her an early cut of the film. And to my ultimate pleasure and surprise, she came back and she said, you know, you inspired me. And I wrote a song for it. And I said, you wrote a song for it. And so in the Land, which is the closing song of the film, she wrote of her own accord. And it was again, to me, a full circle of how inspiring the story and the book still is. And you can, you can hopefully bring it a little bit into the 21st century. You can hopefully this film opens it up a little more so that a lot of other people who might not have felt that they could access that road can access it today. But I think that's kind of one of the magical things about this piece of literature.
- [49:21]
Emma
Yeah, you don't have to be young. And Diana really makes that point. She read on the Road when she was young and she sort of said, I would have loved to go on the road, but I had a successful business and bills to pay and, and so on. And so she, she couldn't just drop out and hit the road. And a lot of people, I think, resent Kerouac for that because they, they feel like, well, I didn't have that chance. I didn't have, you know, it wasn't available to me to just drop everything and spend a year or a couple of years just kind of roaming around. And Kerouac, you know, we kind of know that he had an aunt who was sending him some money and they were kind of living off of American prosperity. And a lot of people will just say, this is. Thank Goodness everyone, every 22 year old, 23 year old male doesn't do this. But the thing, and your documentary makes this point, as we've been talking about, this can be a way of looking at your life and squeezing life to the fullest and all of that. But the strange thing to me is that Kerouac, the end of his life, he seems to have lost his. It's almost like he stepped off this path that he was such a strong advocate for and so persuasive and has led so many people to kind of want to have their candle burning brighter. And what do you think happened? What do you attribute his kind of final years and kind of the sadness of the way that his life ended?
- [50:57]
Ebs Brno
Well, alcohol. Yeah, yeah, I would say alcohol. But I would also say he was a person of great emotion and a lot of highs and lows and a complex relationship with his mother who, you know, people always forget. It's kind of like you think on the road and you think all of this but, you know, he never really didn't live with his mother. He lived with his mother his entire life.
- [51:18]
Emma
And his brother, his. His older brother. I had forgotten that. That his older brother had died when they were children. And his mother then really attached herself to Jack, and it became like a kind of web or a real dependency that she had on him and a kind of guilt that he always felt about being the one who survived. And so it wasn't just a question of, you know, he liked living with mom. It was like a very deep rooted.
- [51:50]
N/A
Yes.
- [51:50]
Ebs Brno
And they were both alcoholics. There's that. And I also think he waited a long time for fame, and then I think he got fame, and then it was. It was too much.
- [52:00]
Emma
Yeah.
- [52:01]
Ebs Brno
And then he became more reclusive, and then with the seclusion with her came more alcohol. And it's a sad ending to what was a. A quite brilliant and burst of energy beginning.
- [52:16]
Emma
Yeah.
- [52:17]
Jack Wilson
Right.
- [52:18]
Emma
Okay. So I wanted to ask you about your previous documentary, the Capote Tapes, which looked at a writer who in some ways could not be more different, these two. But on the other hand, there's also a lot of overlap. One difference, I guess, is Capote really relished the spotlight, and Kerouac seems to have really hated it. Kerouac was. He loved these mad spirits tramping around the country. And Capote liked Manhattan and beautiful people and. And all of that. And Capote has one of the great lines ever of a writer talking about another writer and saying of Kerouac, that's not writing, that's typing. So I don't know that they had a lot of. I don't know if they ever met or anything, but they also, you know, they were born about two years apart, and they both found their way to New York City, which was really something important to them. Is there something in particular about this generation of writers that appeals to you?
- [53:20]
Ebs Brno
I think that generation of writers, you know, they lived through such extraordinary times, and they were both, you know, Capote was always such, you know, so nasty about others. And, you know, it's such an unfair statement about Karawagia. It's not writing.
- [53:40]
Emma
Oh, that line you have in your documentary where he's called a candied tarantula is such a good.
- [53:49]
Ebs Brno
But I think that, you know, they were part of a generation that saw a lot. Their mode, the way they communicated was through their brilliant writing. That was. Television's just becoming a thing. You know what I mean?
- [54:03]
Emma
Right.
- [54:04]
Ebs Brno
That, you know, again, it's these moments where technology is moving us forward, but they still had that. That great tradition of writing and. And of telling us what they were seeing through their words, as opposed to us just naturally being able to see it visually. Do you know what I mean? It's not like, you know, today if you go to Instagram or you go to TikTok, you can, you know, your story on Instagram can give you a visual exploration of what my day was. But they had to write, you know, Capote had to. The brilliance of In Cold Blood or Breakfast at Tiffany. I mean, the brilliance of feeling and being able to visualize through his words where he was in Kansas and that house and the farm and the two men and the hanging. You know, that was all literature at its finest. I think they are from a generation where. Not that we don't have brilliant writers today. That's not at all what I'm saying. But I do think not having the technology that granted them visual storytelling, they still really leaned into their words. And so I think that is. I think that's a fascinating point in history and the literature of that era.
- [55:21]
Emma
Yeah, yeah. It feels like with both of them, especially Capote, it feels like he has a book coming out and the world is kind of going to stop and everyone's going to read the book or talk about the book or it's like going to be an event on the calendar, the publication of a novel by one of these people. So I don't know if this is becoming your. Your niche, but I wanted to throw a couple of ideas out there for you.
- [55:47]
N/A
So.
- [55:47]
Emma
Jack Kerouac was born March 12, 1922. Truman Capote was born September 30, 1924. Right in the middle. Norman Mailer, January 31, 1923.
- [55:59]
Ebs Brno
Norman. Well, and, you know, we've got some good in Capote. We've got some good. You know, Norman speaks so beautifully about Truman, which is. Which having those tapes was such a gift because, you know, he was so gruff that it was rare to hear him be quite so emotional about another writer's writing.
- [56:20]
Emma
Yeah, yeah. Oh, he's envious. He's. He loves Capote's sentences.
- [56:25]
Ebs Brno
He loves those sentences.
- [56:27]
Emma
Yeah. And then the other. The other suggestion I have. August 2, 1924. James Baldwin. Right. Also right in the wheelhouse. And those guys, they're also New York City. This is. This could be a. This could be a quartet for you here.
- [56:44]
Ebs Brno
Could be a quartet. Even though I will tell you, I'm already. I've got a couple new projects that I'm working on right now, and I can't Go into them. But I will say one goes completely kind of off of this into the. Into the world of music, but the next one goes back to literature.
- [57:03]
Emma
Okay, good. Well, W. Kamau Bell had said he wanted an on the Road to be Jack Kerouac and James Baldwin. And I thought, if there is an enterprising young playwright who is out there who is looking for a play to concept. Yep. That is. That one is ready made.
- [57:22]
Ebs Brno
No, agree completely. And you can see the humor.
- [57:26]
Emma
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's leave things there. The film is called Kerouac's Road, the Beat of a Nation. Ebs. Bruno, thank you so much for joining.
- [57:34]
Jack Wilson
Me on the history of literature.
- [57:36]
Ebs Brno
Thank you for having me.
- [57:47]
Emma
And finally today, speaking of Jack Kerouac, Steven Boletto was here a while ago after he and I discussed Stephen's work editing the Cambridge Companion to Jack Kerouac and Artists.
- [57:59]
Jack Wilson
We also discussed the public's continuing fascination with the Beat Generation generally, and Jack Kerouac in particular. I asked Stephen a special question.
- [58:17]
Emma
Okay. We're joined now by Stephen Belletto, editor.
- [58:20]
Jack Wilson
Of the Cambridge Companion to Jack Kerouac.
- [58:23]
Emma
Steven, this question comes from a listener who asks, what do you want your.
- [58:26]
Jack Wilson
Last book to be? This will be the last book you will ever read. You can either choose one that exists or describe one that has not yet been written.
- [58:37]
N/A
Okay. Yeah, that's a really good question and a really hard question. I guess I would say I was trying to come up with a good answer of a book I can imagine, but I can't do it. I would probably say Pale Fire by Vladimir. Yeah.
- [58:51]
Emma
Yeah.
- [58:52]
N/A
That's a book that I've. Yeah, I've read many, many times. And I teach it. And every time I read it and think about it, there's just something new. It's just so deep and rich and strange. Yeah, it would. I guess it would probably be that. Yeah.
- [59:06]
Jack Wilson
Right now you've done a lot of.
- [59:09]
Emma
Work on the Beats, and Nabokov is kind of right there at the same time. And you could say that he's. In some ways, he's got a lot of affinities with someone like Kerouac. His Lolita is almost like an on.
- [59:22]
Jack Wilson
The Road Companion piece.
- [59:24]
Emma
And certainly his prose has a lot of the exuberance and so on that we see in a Kerouac figure. Do we know what Nabokov thought of the Beats?
- [59:35]
N/A
I don't know. Because. I don't know. I have never seen a particular reference to Nabokov, like, talking about the Beats. If I had to Guess he would probably have had a low opinion, because he had a low opinion of almost every writer. I know that Kerouac read Lolita and sort of talked. Talked about it. Not in depth, but I've seen, like a reference to it. And people talk about. So lolita comes out, 1955, Kerouac on the road, 57. People talk about the second part of Lolita being like a parody of on the Road before on the Road came out. Yeah. So there is sort of that connection there. Right. Because they're just going around, going around America. Right. So, yeah, that's. I guess that's what I would say is Pale Fire. Just because it's such an interesting and weird and deep. Deep book. Yeah.
- [60:25]
Emma
Now, does Pale Fire, do you think it has a particular appeal for academics?
- [60:31]
Jack Wilson
It has such a textual interplay?
- [60:35]
N/A
Probably, yeah. Sometimes I feel like I can sell it to my students and sometimes I can't. Like, sometimes it works and they get into it and sometimes they're like, why are you forcing us to read this book? You know? Yeah. So I mean, for people who don't know, Pale Fire is. So the first part is this 999 line poem by this fictional poet. So that's the first part. And then the second part, like two or 300 pages, is the annotation of that poem and by this guy who you realize pretty quickly is crazy. Right. And the annotations pretty soon have nothing to do with the poem itself and has everything to do with this kingdom called Zembla that this narrator may or may not be the king of. Maybe he's crazy, maybe he's the king in hiding. You don't really know. And so it just gets completely wild and crazy. Right? So, yeah. So for me, right. As a. As a scholar, I love it because it's making fun of the work of criticism and scholarship. Right. But Nabokov also was a critic and scholar himself. And he had just. So when he was doing Pale Fire, he had just edited this multi volume version of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. It was similar where he had these, like voluminous notes, Right. Because he was, you know, a scholarly dude. So this is where I think the idea for Pale Fire sort of came from. But he had, you know, he had deep affection, was sort of like a scholar himself. So it's like making fun of the enterprise, but there's also this love and affection, I think. Right. But it's just brilliant because Nabokov's a person who knows a million languages, knows everything. Right. There's all sorts of literary games and references and so on, as there is in Lolita. So that sort of thing, it just gets kind of deeper and deeper to me each time I read it. And that's something that I just like in a book. You know, I just like to say, wow, there's all this sort of stuff I never saw, or I've taught this book for so long, and my student's like, hey, what about this? And I was like, wow, I never noticed. I never noticed that connection. So, like, that. That, to me, is really cool.
- [62:36]
Emma
Yeah, well. And one other comparison between Kerouac in particular and Nabokov that seems appropriate here is that a lot of people know these two writers, but a lot of people know them only for the single book that on the Road and Lolita are such staples in people's must read lists and so on that it is nice to hear. When we talked about Kerouac, we talked about Dharma Bums and some other candidates. That would be a good second Kerouac book to read. And I think Palefire would be a good second Nabokov book to read for.
- [63:14]
Jack Wilson
People who have read Lolita.
- [63:17]
N/A
Yeah, I would agree with you. So, yeah, I mean, if you like Lolita, I would definitely check out Pale Fire. I mean, it's different and you just have to kind of go with it. And I always tell my students, read the poem and then just sort of read the notes. And if you don't understand everything, that's okay. Just sort of plow through and get an overall sense of the story that Nabokov's trying to tell in this kind of weird form. But, yeah, no, I think you're totally right that it's like we think of on the Road and we think of Kerouac and Lolita with Nabokov for sure.
- [63:44]
Emma
Yeah.
- [63:46]
Jack Wilson
Okay.
- [63:46]
Emma
Stephen Belletto, thank you so much for.
- [63:48]
Jack Wilson
Joining me on the History of Literature.
- [63:50]
N/A
Hey, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
- [63:58]
Emma
Okay, there we go.
- [64:00]
Jack Wilson
That's going to do it for this episode of the History of Literature.
- [64:02]
Emma
I'm so glad you could join us for it.
- [64:05]
Jack Wilson
My thanks to Stephen Belletto for that cameo appearance. And to Ebbs brno, do check out his documentary film, Kerouac's the Beat of a Nation. You will be glad you do. And then with your appetite for travel.
- [64:20]
Emma
Whetted, do head on over to John.
- [64:23]
Jack Wilson
Shore's Travel and see if maybe the Jack Wilson tour of Literary England next.
- [64:28]
Emma
May might work for you.
- [64:30]
Jack Wilson
We would love to have you join.
- [64:32]
Emma
Us in our small group of merry.
- [64:34]
Jack Wilson
Travelers as we go to the land of Shakespeare and Dickens and Jane Austen and Mary Shelley and Tolkien and C.S.
- [64:42]
Emma
Lewis. So many great authors.
- [64:45]
Jack Wilson
We're going to visit the sites where they lived and ate and drank and wrote those people at. Our friends at John Shores Travel have put together a wonderful week for us.
- [64:57]
Emma
The Itinerary we are very much looking.
- [64:59]
Jack Wilson
Forward to spending some time together with you, perhaps being inspired by these great.
- [65:05]
Emma
Works and great authors and generally spending.
- [65:07]
Jack Wilson
Some quality time with some quality company. What a great thing for 2026. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.
- [65:28]
N/A
Behind every empire are the people history tried to forget. Lost Roman Heroes tells the stories of the remarkable characters who shaped Rome from its mythical beginnings to its final fall.
- [65:40]
Emma
Each episode blends armchair storytelling, sharp historical.
- [65:43]
Jack Wilson
Insight, and a bit of humor to.
- [65:45]
Emma
Bring these lost figures to life.
- [65:46]
Jack Wilson
From generals to scientists, from rebels to empresses, from priests to politicians, these lost.
- [65:51]
Emma
Roman heroes have one thing in common.
- [65:53]
N/A
They stood up for civilization when the bad guys threatened, and in doing so, they changed the course of human history. If you're into history that's vivid, surprising and deeply human, this show's for you.
- [66:04]
David Page
Behind every great meal is a person with a story to tell. Hear them on Culinary Characters Unlocked, the podcast that reveals the lives behind the food. Hosted by me, David Page, Emmy Award winning journalist and creator of Diners Drive Ins and Dives, as I talk with everyone from culinary legends to mom and pop standouts about the creativity, grit and passion that shape the food we love. Follow Culinary Characters Unlocked on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.