One of the most widely read and influential American writers of the 20th century, Jack Kerouac is often misunderstood. This study examines the confessions of a 20th-century St. Augustine and traces the progress of a great pilgrim through the decline of modern civilization. Christy focuses on the last ten years of Kerouac's life, from the influential New York Times rave review of On the Road until his death in 1969, a period in Kerouac's life that until now has been dismissed by most biographers as nothing more than a drunken decline. Christy asserts that Kerouac was a madman and mystic whose last days were wilder and more fascinating than any of the adventures he wrote about. As Christy reveals, in the last decade of his life Jack Kerouac was racing to obtain his goal of being “safe in heaven dead.”

Always in search of original characters and experiences, Jim Christy is a literary vagabond with few peers. He was once described by George Woodcock as “one of the last unpurged North American anarchistic romantics.” His publisher has called him a hip Indiana Jones; one reviewer credited him with a “Gary Cooper-like presence.” His buddies have included hobos, jazz musicians, boxers, and non-academic writers such as Charles Bukowski, Peter Trower and Joe Ferone. “I never dismiss another’s story out of hand,” he writes, “no matter what it’s about or how outrageous it may seem.” Christy’s often wry reminiscences of his travels, trysts and trials are fuelled by a hard-won pride. A gardener, a sculptor and a spoken word performer with a jazz/blues ensemble, Christy has been seen in film and television productions, usually in non-speaking roles as a thug or a gangster.

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