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“beatnik myth debunked?
by James K. Hanna
The world of Beat literature is all abuzz over the news that Jack Kerouac’s original “scroll” of his groundbreaking novel On the Road will soon be auctioned, for the second time.
It was first bought for $2.3 million from the Kerouac legacy estate in 2001 by Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. The billionaire businessman died last year and the scroll, along with the original manuscript of Kerouac’s Dharma Bums, will be auctioned in March by Christie’s.
That news has overshadowed the bombshell of three months ago when the literary world learned that Paul Castellano, a known American crime boss murdered in 1985, had in his estate an unpublished two-page short story written and signed by Kerouac in 1957.
Many think it is legitimate, including the auction house, Your Own Museum, which bought the item from the Castellano estate in 2024 and sold it last year.
Photos of the manuscript are available online at various reputable websites.
In addition to the two-page story, a title page reads, “On the Road: The Holy, Beat, and Crazy Next Thing – A Brief Tale.”
It is dated April 15, 1957, six months before Kerouac’s groundbreaking novel was published. No byline appears and the only sign that Kerouac may have written the piece is the signature, in green ink, at the bottom of the final page.
The auction house described the piece as “a quintessential ‘lost’ chapter” of the famous novel, telling reporters, “Despite it never being authenticated before, the provenance was too substantial for us not to take a risk. To our delight, after lab work and thorough investigation, it was confirmed that the item was from that time. On top of this, the signature was consistent with all confirmed examples of Kerouac.”
How long Castellano owned the short manuscript is unknown, but the news of the discovery became public last October when Your Own Museum sold the piece for $8,500. At the time it was lauded by news accounts as a “very significant find.”
The auction house claimed the piece originated from the collection of an unnamed noted San Francisco-based poet who received it directly from Kerouac. How and when Castellano ended up with the document is not known.
Some have questioned its authenticity, citing, among other things, the date. We know from letters written by Kerouac to poet and friend Philip Whalen and to agent Sterling Lord that Kerouac was in London, England on April 15, 1957. That’s not so bothersome; he may have typed the story there. One explanation has been given that he was trying to flesh out characters for his novel published later in the year.
The date is of consequence for another reason—one seemingly lost in the excitement.
As I read the first page of the story, one seven-letter word jumped off the page like a thrown dagger!
The word appears near the middle of the last sentence of the second paragraph. Similar to a scene in the novel the author of the short story paints a picture of driving into Denver with Dean at the wheel of a Hudson, but here he adds an image not in the novel: “He slammed the wheel with open palms, a beatnik drum for the gods of the world.”
Beatnik! When did that word first appear in print? According to nearly universally accepted lore, not until 1958, when a newspaper columnist inked the word.
Kerouac is credited with coining the phrase “beat generation” in 1948. When speaking with writer John Clellon Holmes he used the phrase “you might say we are a beat generation,” but San Francisco columnist Herb Caen has been widely recognized for seven decades as the creator of “beatnik.”
It was in his April 2, 1958, San Francisco Chronicle column where Caen, as is popularly accepted, coined “beatnik” by joining “beat” with “Sputnik,” the Russian satellite launched in October of 1957. Caen insisted “it just came out. I fell into it. To my amazement, it caught on immediately.”
Even Norman Mailer includes a footnote to “beatnik” in his Advertisements for Myself: “A word coined by an idiot columnist in San Francisco.”
In his column, Caen wrote,
“Look magazine, preparing a picture spread on S.F.’s Beat Generation (oh, no, not AGAIN!), hosted a party in a No. Beach house for 50 Beatniks, and by the time word got around the sour grapevine, over 250 bearded cats and kits were on hand, slopping up Mike Cowles’ free booze. They’re only Beat, y’know, when it comes to work …”.
He said he made fun of the beats because they took themselves so seriously. The term garnered great traction and was often viewed as derogatory, that the beats were angry young bohemians, communists.
In 1995 Caen claimed in a recollection that he ran into Kerouac the day of his beatnik column. “I ran into Kerouac that night at El Matador. He was mad. He said, ‘You’re putting us down and making us sound like jerks. I hate it. Stop using it.’”
Derogatory or not, Caen’s coinage reached mythological proportion.
That’s why the date of April 15, 1957, is so important. There is no doubt Caen popularized the term, but if the Castellano manuscript is legitimate, and the short story is Kerouac’s work, then Kerouac penned “beatnik” nearly a year earlier than Caen—and without the benefit of Russian satellites (though he may have picked it up lounging in jazz clubs). If that be the case, Caen’s great and long-standing myth is debunked.
James K. Hanna 