The Town and the City

The Town and the City

The Town and the City is a novel by Jack Kerouac, published by Harcourt Brace in 1950. This was the first major work published by Kerouac, who later became famous for his second novel On the Road . Like all of Jack Kerouac's major works, The Town and the City is essentially an autobiographical...

is a novel by Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac

Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...

, published by Harcourt Brace in 1950. This was the first major work published by Kerouac, who later became famous for his second novel On the Road

On the Road

On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. It is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of...

(1957). Like all of Jack Kerouac's major works, The Town and the City is essentially an autobiographical novel, though less directly so than most of his other works. The Town and the City was written in a conventional manner over a period of years, and much more novelistic license was taken with this work than after Kerouac's adoption of quickly written "spontaneous prose". The Town and the City was written before Kerouac had developed his own style, and it is heavily influenced by Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...

 (even down to the title, reminiscent of Wolfe titles such as The Web and the Rock).

The novel is focused on two locations (as suggested by the title): one, the early Beat Generation

Beat generation

The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

 circle of New York in the late 1940s, the other, the nearly rural small town of Galloway, Massachusetts that the main character comes from, before going off to college on a football scholarship. The experiences of the young "Peter Martin" struggling for success on the high school football team are largely those of Jack Kerouac (he returns to the subject again in his last work Vanity of Duluoz

Vanity of Duluoz

Vanity of Duluoz is a 1968 semi-autobiographical novel by Jack Kerouac . The book describes the adventures of Kerouac's alter ego, Jack Duluoz, covering the period of his life between 1935 and 1946...

, published in 1968).

The "city" represents a number of figures of the early beat circle: Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

 (as Leon Levinsky), Lucien Carr

Lucien Carr

Lucien Carr was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s; later he worked for many years as an editor for United Press International.-Early life:...

 (as Kenneth Wood), William Burroughs (as Will Dennison), Herbert Huncke

Herbert Huncke

Herbert Edwin Huncke was a writer and poet, and active participant in a number of emerging cultural, social and aesthetic movements of the 20th century in America...

 (as Junky), David Kammerer (as Waldo Meister), Edie Parker

Edie Parker

Edie Kerouac-Parker was the author of her memoir, "You'll Be Okay" from the Beat Generation, and the first wife of Jack Kerouac. She and Joan Vollmer shared an apartment on 118th Street in New York City, frequented by many Beats, among them Vollmer's eventual husband William S. Burroughs.Parker...

 (as Judie Smith) and also Joan Vollmer

Joan Vollmer

Joan Vollmer was the most prominent female member of the early Beat Generation circle. While a student at Barnard College she became the roommate of Edie Parker and their apartment became a gathering place for the Beats during the 1940s, where Vollmer was often at the center of marathon, all...

 (as Mary Dennison) -- though she essentially has a non-speaking role (however some of her ideas are quoted by the Ginsberg-figure). Near the end of the novel, the Waldo Meister character dies by falling from the window of Kenneth Wood's apartment (a distant echo of the real event: David Kammerer knifed by Lucien Carr, possibly in self-defense). In the novel the police largely just accept this as a suicide. A version of the events closer to the truth can be found in Vanity of Duluoz, where Carr was arrested and eventually accepted a plea of manslaughter and a prison sentence; and Kerouac was arrested and held briefly as an accessory after the fact.

Publication

Kerouac began writing The Town and the City in late 1945, according to Ellis Amburn

Ellis Amburn

Ellis Edward Amburn is an American book editor and biographer.-Life:A 1954 graduate of Texas Christian University, Ellis Amburn worked as a reporter for Newsweek before going into the book publishing industry where he rose to the position of editor, working for such well-known publishers as...

, who edited Kerouac's last two novels and wrote the biography Subterranean Kerouac. Heavily influenced by Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...

, he sent the completed manuscript to Wolfe's publisher, Charles Scribner's Sons

Charles Scribner's Sons

Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon...

, in 1948. Kerouac told his friend Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

 that he hoped that he would hook up with Wolfe's editor Maxwell Perkins

Maxwell Perkins

William Maxwell Evarts Perkins , was the editor for Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. He has been described as the most famous literary editor.-Career:...

, not knowing that Perkins had died the previous year. Scribner's rejected the book.

Ginsburg lobbied his former teacher at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 (Kerouac had also attended Columbia), Mark Van Doren

Mark Van Doren

Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation...

 for help, and Van Doren set up an interview with Alfred Kazin

Alfred Kazin

Alfred Kazin was an American writer and literary critic, many of whose writings depicted the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America....

, who worked as a scout for Harcourt Brace. Kerouac was unable to make the interview with Kazin but Ginsburg introduced Kerouac to New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

editor Ed Stringham, who arranged a meeting between Kerouac and the editor-in-chief of Viking Press

Viking Press

Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...

. Kazin eventually decided to read the manuscript and if he liked it, he would pass recommend it to the top publishers in New York. His contacts also included Houghton Mifflin

Houghton Mifflin

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...

, Alfred A. Knopf

Alfred A. Knopf

Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...

, Little Brown and Company, and Random House

Random House

Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...

. Kazin recommended the book.

In December 1948, Scribner's again rejected the manuscript, despite changes that Kerouac had made to the text. Little Brown also rejected the book that same month, declining publication due to its excessive length, which meant the book would be prohibitively expensive for a first novel. (Most of the costs of publishing a first novel are the costs of paper and binding, and a long book makes it harder for the publisher to recoup its costs.)

After reading sample chapters of The Town and the City (along with Kerouac's work-in-progress Dr. Sax, Mark Van Doren recommended the novel to Robert Giroux

Robert Giroux

Robert Giroux was an influential American book editor and publisher. Starting his editing career with Harcourt, Brace & Co., he was hired away to work for Roger W. Straus, Jr. at Farrar & Straus in 1955, where he became a partner and, eventually, its chairman...

 at Harcourt Brace in March 1949. Giroux, like Van Doren and Kerouac, was associated with Columbia. Giroux was impressed with the 1,100-page-long manuscript, which he thought comparable to Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel

Look Homeward, Angel

Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life is a 1929 novel by Thomas Wolfe. It is Wolfe's first novel, and is considered a highly autobiographical American Bildungsroman. The character of Eugene Gant is generally believed to be a depiction of Wolfe himself. The novel covers the span of time...

in terms of its lyricism and poetry, and offered Kerouac a $1,000 advance against royalties. He did require that the manuscript be cut to reduce production costs.

Cutting and revising The Town and the City under the supervision of Giroux took months, according to Kerouac's friend John Clellon Holmes

John Clellon Holmes

John Clellon Holmes , born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, was an author, poet and professor, best known for his 1952 novel Go. Considered the first "Beat" novel, Go depicted events in his life with his friends Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg. He was often referred to as the "quiet Beat"...

. Giroux wanted a 500-page novel that could retail for the then-standard $3.50 per copy. After many months, the proofs were ready in November 1949. The publication date was set for February 1950, with a run of 15,000 copies, 10,500 of which were bound. (The additional 4,500 sets of pages were warehoused, should demand require additional copies.) The English publisher Eyre and Spottiswoode bought the UK rights of the book and prepared their own edition for 1950.

Kerouac decided to use the name "John Kerouac" for the book. (Subsequent paperback and hardback editions have used the name "Jack Kerouac" in lieu of John.) Kerouac dedicated the book To Robert Giroux, "Friend and Editor". Giroux told Kerouac that movie producer David O. Selznick

David O. Selznick

David O. Selznick was an American film producer. He is best known for having produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca , both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.-Early years:...

 was interested in buying the rights to the book.

Publication eventually was pushed back to March 2, 1950. It received good notices from Charles Poore, reviewing the book for the daily New York Times, and John Brooks, reviewing it for the Sunday Times Book Review. The book was trashed by reviewers for the New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

and the Saturday Review.

The book was not a success, and Kerouac complained in a September 1950 letter to a Worcester, Massachusetts reviewer who had praised the book that it was no longer selling. Kerouac made no more money on The Town and the City, as his royalties did not exceed his advance and a movie sale never materialized.

Giroux subsequently rejected On the Road

On the Road

On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. It is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of...

in 1951 and all other Kerouac novels submitted to him over the years. The 1951 rejection of On the Road

On the Road

On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. It is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of...

effectively ended Kerouac's personal and professional relationship with Giroux, whom he had considered a friend, and his professional relationship with Harcourt Brace. It would be another six years before he was again published professionally, when Viking published On the Road

On the Road

On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957. It is a largely autobiographical work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America. It is often considered a defining work of...

at the urging of Malcolm Cowley

Malcolm Cowley

Malcolm Cowley was an American novelist, poet, literary critic, and journalist.-Early life:...

.

Character Key

Real-life person	Character name
Jack Kerouac Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...	Peter Martin
Leo Kerouac	George Martin
Caroline Kerouac	Ruth and Elizabeth Martin
Gabrielle Kerouac	Marguerite Courbet Martin
Gerard Kerouac	Julian Martin
George "G.J." Apostolos	Danny "D.J." Mulverhill
Henry "Scotty" Beaulieu	Scotcho Rouleau
William S. Burroughs William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...	Will Dennison
Joan Vollmer Joan Vollmer Joan Vollmer was the most prominent female member of the early Beat Generation circle. While a student at Barnard College she became the roommate of Edie Parker and their apartment became a gathering place for the Beats during the 1940s, where Vollmer was often at the center of marathon, all...	Mary Dennison
Mary Carney	Mary Gilhooley
Lucien Carr Lucien Carr Lucien Carr was a key member of the original New York City circle of the Beat Generation in the 1940s; later he worked for many years as an editor for United Press International.-Early life:...	Kenneth Wood
Billy Chandler	Tommy Campbell
Allen Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...	Leon Levinsky
Herbert Huncke Herbert Huncke Herbert Edwin Huncke was a writer and poet, and active participant in a number of emerging cultural, social and aesthetic movements of the 20th century in America...	Junky
David Kammerer	Waldo Meister
Edie Parker Edie Parker Edie Kerouac-Parker was the author of her memoir, "You'll Be Okay" from the Beat Generation, and the first wife of Jack Kerouac. She and Joan Vollmer shared an apartment on 118th Street in New York City, frequented by many Beats, among them Vollmer's eventual husband William S. Burroughs.Parker...	Judie Smith
Sebastian "Sammy" Sampas	Alex Panos

Some quotations

• And what does the rain say at night in a small town, what does the rain have to say? Who walks beneath dripping melancholy branches listening to the rain? Who is there in the rain's million-needled blurring splash, listening to the grave music of the rain at night, September rain, September rain, so dark and soft? Who is there listening to steady level roaring rain all around, brooding and listening and waiting, in the rain-washed, rain-twinkled dark of night? -- Book 2, Chapter 5.

• "Tell you about cockroaches," said Clint with intense enthusiasm, leaning forward with a finger pointed. "Now! The place I live in has a lot of cockroaches, but I don't have trouble with them, understand, I'm on the best terms with them. Tell you how I do this. Some years ago I sat down and thought about the whole matter: I said to myself, cockroaches are human too, just as much as us human beings. Reason for that is this: I've watched them long enough to realize their sense of discretion, their feelings, their emotions, their thoughts, see. But you laugh. You think I'm talking through my hat. You doubt my word. Wait! Wait!" -- Book 4, Chapter 5

• There's no doubt about the fact that Mary Dennison is mad, but that's only because she wants to be mad. What she has to say about the world, about everybody falling apart, about everybody clawing aggressively at one another in one grand finale of our glorious culture, about the madness in high places and the insane disorganized stupidity of the people who let themselves be told what to do and what to think by charlatans -- all that is true! All the advertising men who dream up unreal bugaboos for people to flee from, like B.O. or if you don't have such-and-such a color to your wash you're an outcast from society. Don't you see it, man? The world's going mad! Therefore it's quite possible there *must be* some sort of disease that's started. There's only one real conclusion to be drawn. In Mary's words, everybody got the atomic disease, everybody's radioactive. -- "Leon Levinsky" (Allen Ginsberg) about "Mary Dennison" (Joan Vollmer), Book 4, Chapter 3