Neal Cassady

(Newser) - The letter that Jack Kerouac says inspired the spontaneous style of On the Road and later works—spawning the genre of Beat literature in the process—has resurfaced after having been believed lost for nearly 50 years. Kerouac believed the 16,000-word letter Neal Cassady wrote describing a drug-fueled visit...

(Newser) - Carolyn Cassady, a key figure in the Beat Generation of writers—both as character and author—has died at age 90 after slipping into a coma following an emergency appendectomy, the New York Times reports. Cassady, who inspired the character of Camille in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, was...

(Newser) - For today’s 50th anniversary of On the Road’s publication, Slate canvassed some of Jack Kerouac’s associates, creating a dramatic and nostalgic picture. The poet’s agent remembers he was thrown for a loop by the “demon” of “public reaction, celebrity,” and Carolyn Cassady recalls...