On the Road

The book that turned a continent into a route. A young writer and his restless friend cross and recross the United States by car, bus and thumb, from New York out to Denver, on to San Francisco and the Bay, down to New Orleans, and finally in a headlong plunge south to Mexico City. The map follows that coast-to-coast spine and the last leg over the border.

Sal Paradise

New York

Part One

The story begins in New York, where the narrator is drifting after an illness and a broken marriage until a live-wire friend from the West sets his mind on the road. Every long trip in the book starts or ends here, the city he keeps returning to before striking out again.

Part One, chapter 1

explicit Kerouac names New York plainly; the narrator lives with an aunt across the river in New Jersey and treats Manhattan as his home base. The point marks midtown Manhattan as the eastern hub of the journeys, not a single named address.

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Sal Paradise

Denver

Part One

Denver is the great middle of the book, the place where the two friends' circles collide and the parties never quite stop. Hitching and busing out from the East, the narrator lands here first, among old crowds and new schemes, before pressing on to the coast.

Part One

explicit Denver is named throughout and is the friend's home town; the point marks the city centre rather than any one bar or rooming house.

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Sal Paradise

San Francisco

Part One

San Francisco is the far western wall the continent runs into, reached after a hard haul across the plains and the mountains. Broke and hungry by the water, the narrator works and wanders the Bay before the pull of the East and the road turns him around again.

Part One

explicit San Francisco and the Bay are named directly; the point marks the city as the western end of the crossing, with specific rooms and jobs left unlocated.

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