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The Strange Story of Jack Kerouac's Estate

A mama's boy, a will that's a forgery, and '100 Greek relatives'

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Oct 29, 2009 1:30 PM CDT
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(Newser) – When Jack Kerouac died, wallowing in alcohol and obscurity, the bank estimated his estate’s value at $1. He left everything to his mother, and when she died, she left it to Kerouac’s third wife, Stella Sampas—or so everyone believed. Recently a Florida court ruled Gabrielle Kerouac's will a forgery. But thanks to an earlier summary judgment, the $20 million estate, which Stella’s family inherited after her death, is staying put.

When Kerouac’s disowned daughter Jan saw the will, she immediately suspected it was a forgery. “It was all weird and scraggly and misspelt,” she told the Telegraph. But Jan died before the case could be resolved, and a judge issued a summary ruling legitimizing the Sampas family’s claim. Only then did Kerouac’s nephew turn up with a letter in which the late author said he didn’t want to leave “a dingblasted fucking goddamn thing to my wife’s one hundred Greek relatives.” It was too late; the ruling stands.

The Kerouac House is seen in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008. This house was once the home to beat generation author Jack Kerouac.
The Kerouac House is seen in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008. This house was once the home to beat generation author Jack Kerouac.   (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Author Jack Kerouac laughs during a 1967 visit to the home of a friend in Lowell, Mass.
Author Jack Kerouac laughs during a 1967 visit to the home of a friend in Lowell, Mass.   (AP Photo/Stanley Twardowicz, File)
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COMMENTS
Showing 1 of 1 comment
NxBigmouthery
Oct 30, 2009 5:37 AM CDT
What a load. Town and City was a Wolfeian rip, acknowledged by Kerouac himself. The teletype paper on which JK wrote a draft of On The Road in 1951, six years before publication, was written under the influence of coffee and benzedrine. The novel that appeared in 1957 was a much changed work, thanks to more cogent analysis by Ginsberg and Kerouac himself. To call it 'squalid' speaks more to your repression than it does to the events in the late 1940s that informed On the Road.

 
will • Jack Kerouac • inheritance • forgery • beat

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