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Hello and welcome to the Spectators Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary

end of The Spectator. And this week, we're celebrating the centenary of

the birth of one of the most influential figures in mid-20th century popular literature. That is Jack Kerouac,

the master of what we've just been describing as spontaneous Boprosity. And I'm joined,

I'm pleased to say, by the biographer Holly George

Warren, who's working now on what should be the definitive biography of Kerouac, due out in a year

or two. I have fingers across there. You can't see on the podcast, but, and also Simon Warner,

who's the author of, among other things,

Kerouac on record, a literary soundtrack and text and drugs and rock and roll

the beats and rock culture.

Welcome both.

Talk to young people today, and many of them won't really have heard of Karat.

Where do you think his reputation stands 100 years from his birth?

I actually think there are quite a few younger generation folks who are familiar with

Kerouac. Maybe they haven't even read on the road, but they've been listening to music

in which Kerouac's name is dropped, everything from, you know, American groups like the Holds Steady

and people like Lana Del Rey who mentioned the beats. And I think people today, the younger

people that are into music by different artists that are into Carowack and on the road,

then go down the rabbit hole, checking out who is this guy, et cetera. So maybe it's not as widely known as, say, in the boomers, those notorious boomers days,

or even the Gen Xers.

But I do think his name is quite well known.

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