Joyce Johnson's blog

Ever since On the Road was published, sporadic attempts to bring it to the screen have come to nothing. Hollywood producers evidently saw the book's lack of a storyline with a limiting three-act structure as a drawback. By the time Jack wrote On the Road in 1951, after five years of false starts, he was already in rebellion against conventional storytelling. (more)

On October 7, 1951, Jack went to Birdland to hear the alto saxophonist Lee Konitz.  The music sounded "so profoundly interior" to Jack that he was sure very few people would understand it. In fact, he compared Konitz's extended phrases to the sentences he was writing lately.  Jack saw that he and the musician were essentially doing the same thing. (more)