On the Road
(Jack Kerouac)

Summary – Part One

The novel begins with the narrator, Sal Paradise, explaining how he met Dean Moriarty. Dean has just moved to New York with his wife, Marylou, after being released from reform school. Dean is full of energy and obviously quite crazy. He is interested in learning as much as possible and is the most intellectual uneducated person that Sal has ever met.

As a writer, and as an envious person, Sal finds Dean to be highly intriguing. Marylou has Dean arrested and leaves him to go back to Denver and Dean moves in with Sal at Sal’s aunts house and begins working in a parking lot. Dean meets Sal’s friend Carlo Marx who is a poet and another strong personality.

Dean and Carlo hit it off immediately and spend the next two weeks constantly together where Dean expresses his excitement over his life in New York and his desire to write, to learn as much as possible, and to hook up with many different women. Sal thinks Dean and Carlo are fascinating and the epitome of what it is to be Beat.

Eventually Dean decides that he must head west to get back to his life there. Shortly after, Sal decides it is time to thoroughly live his life, away from college, and heads west, as well. He wishes to take Route 6 all the way to the west coast and begins hitching in Chicago after purchasing a bus ticket to take him there.

After Sal’s first couple of days on the road, he wakes up in a hotel room after catching up on some sleep and realizes that he no longer has any idea who he is. He is not upset about this change or regretful of what he is doing he just no longer recognizes himself through his actions, which was the goal of the trip. He is searching for life experience to finish his novel, and that is exactly what he is getting.

Sal meets another hitcher named Eddie who he sticks with for a few days. They journey through a couple of states together but as soon as a ride comes along that can only take one of them Eddie takes the opportunity and leaves Sal behind without ever looking back.

Sal jumps on a flatbed truck that is full of various hitchers who are headed toward Los Angeles. He is in heaven being surrounded by so many different types of people who are all living a spontaneous life for the summer, and he makes fast friends with Mississippi Gene, who he shares a common friend with, and Montana Slim.

When the truck gets into Wyoming, Sal and Montana Slim decide to jump off to explore the Wild West festival that is going on in the town. Sal and Montana Slim mingle with the locals, get drunk, and chase women and Sal leaves the festival with one.

Sal regrets for a moment the situation that he is in when he is falling asleep on a bus stop bench in the middle of nowhere, drunk and broke. When he wakes up he finds that Montana Slim is gone, and he decides it is time to make his way to Denver to see his friends.

When Sal arrives in Denver, he contacts his friend Chad King who picks him up and learns that Chad is no longer friends with Dean and Carlo. Sal wonders if he should stick with Chad’s group of friends or go off to find Dean and Carlo. He hangs out at Chad’s for a while so he can rest and think things over.

The reader learns a little about Dean’s past in this chapter. His father was an alcoholic and Dean was a troubled child, primarily a delinquent, who was sent to reform school when he was caught stealing cars. Sal moves into an apartment that is owned by his friend Tim Gray and settles into the city making new friends and coming into contact with some old ones.

Carlo tracks down Sal and Sal learns that Carlo and Dean have been doing a lot of drugs and sleeping remarkably little. Dean and Marylou are divorcing, and Dean is sleeping with as many women as possible.

Sal visits Dean’s apartment, where he answers the door naked, and Dean decides he must take Sal out on the town to meet some women. They do meet some women and wish to take them back to Sal’s place, but Sal’s roommate Roland Major who is a bit snobby will not let them in the apartment.

Sal is now totally broke and has no idea what his next move should be. Sal’s hitchhiking friend Eddie contacts him looking for work and Dean gets them jobs at the market. Sal does not show up for work, however, he is spending him time exploring the nightlife, listening to Carlo’s poetry readings, and basically spying on Dean in everything that he does because Sal finds him fascinating.

Carlo and Dean are planning a trip to San Francisco, but Sal decides to head into the mountains with Tim, Babe, and Ray Rawlins. They find a shack to throw parties in, which eventually is bombarded by frat boys, and Sal decides that he may want to go to San Francisco with Carlo and Dean.

When the boys get back into Denver, Sal learns that Carlo and Dean were in the mountains the whole time. Dean sets Sal up with a woman named Rita Bettencourt, and they have awkward sex and conversation about life in general. Before he leaves for San Francisco Sal takes a last walk through Denver, gets his shirt back from Eddie, and picks up money his aunt has wired to him. Dean tells Sal that he and Carlo may meet him in San Francisco.

When Sal finally arrives in San Francisco, he meets with Remi Boncoeur, an old friend of his. Remi lives with his girlfriend LeeAnn and Sal thinks they have a terrible relationship. Sal decides he must get a job and decides to work security at the shipyard with Remi. Most of the other men who work there are retired cops and Sal and Remi end up causing more trouble than preventing it. They get drunk with the sailors, raise an American flag upside down, break into the room of the Barracks supervisor, and steal food from the cafeteria because as Remi says, President Truman wants to cut down on the cost of living.

Sal spends most of his time exploring the night life, trying to find a woman, and scaring the gay men who try to hit on him in bathrooms. He and Remi and LeeAnn spend a lot of time gambling, and after a particularly grievous loss, Remi gets in a fight with LeeAnn and decides to break up with her and also sever his friendship with Sal. He asks that Sal and LeeAnn pretend that all is well in front of his stepfather, which they agree to, but Sal gets drunk with Roland Major and ruins the entire night. Remi is officially done with Sal after this moment. Sal feels that it is probably time for him to head back to New Jersey.

Sal heads down to Los Angeles and meets a Chicano girl named Terry who works in the fields with her family. Terry is married but trying to escape her abusive husband and has a small son who works with her. Terry and Sal get drunk together, talk about the future and feel as though they are in love with one another, Sal even wants Terry to move back east with him.

Sal and Terry go everywhere from Los Angeles to Mexico with Ricky and Terry’s son and try to find work, though no one will hire them. Sal gets a job picking cotton in Mexico to support Terry and her son who he lives in a tent with and considers his family at this point.

It gets too cold out after a few months to live out in the tent anymore so Sal brings Terry and her son back to their family where they part ways. With fifty dollars that Sal has wired from his aunt he makes his way back to the east coast. When Sal finally makes it back to his aunt’s house, he learns that Dean had just been there to stay a few days earlier though he was now headed to San Francisco to stay with his new girl, Camille. Sal settles in to his writing once again.

Summary – Part Two

It has been a year since Sal returned home, and he has finally finished his novel. He has been writing to Dean and learns that he will be returning to the east coast sometime soon. Sal and his aunt spend the holidays in Virginia visiting family and happen to see Dean, Marylou, and Ed Dunkel pull up on a car.

Dean tells Sal that he had been living with Camille in San Francisco for a year where he and Ed worked for the railroad. Dean spent all of his savings on the car, and Ed married a girl named Galatea just so she would pay for their road trip. Her money only took them as far as Tucson so they left her in a hotel there. Dean reunited with Marylou, determined to make their relationship work this time.

The group grabs supplies, stocks Dean’s car with furniture they are taking for Sal’s aunt, and head back to New Jersey with it. Sal tells his friends he has been seeing a girl named Lucille, and he is thinking of settling down with her, though he knows that the travel bug is hitting him again.

When they finally make it back to New Jersey and get some rest Sal gets a phone call from Galatea Dunkel, Ed’s wife. She says that she is in New Orleans, and Sal tells her that they will stop and pick her up on their way back west. The group meets up with Carlo Marx who is obviously a different person than he was back in Denver. Carlo tells them that he took a trip to Africa and regales them with stories.

The boys eat quickly and head back to Virginia to get Sal’s aunt, and, on the trip, they have intense conversations about religion, saints, and mysticism. On the way back to New Jersey, they get pulled over and Sal’s aunt pays the ticket for them, knowing they will not. Her talks about the way women are treated by men cause Sal and Dean to reflect on what little they know and understand about women.

Sal, Dean, and Ed decide that they must find a place to live in New York and have intense discussions about death and the desire to die an honorable death, not a boring one. When the group spends New Year’s in New York their relationships begin to fall apart. Lucille does not like the person Sal is when he is with Dean she sees him as someone who is becoming crazy and wants him to stay with her though he wants to travel.

Marylou knows that when they go back to the west coast Dean is going to leave her for Camille once again and tries to get with Sal instead, but to no avail.

Dean and Sal visit a jazz club where they see a blind pianist play and Dean is especially entranced by the music. Both men are affected by what they are hearing, and also by the pot they are smoking, but Dean sees the musician as God-like. When the pianist gets up, Dean calls the seat he was in “God’s empty chair”. Sal decides that he will go back west with Dean because he wants to see what Dean will do when he gets back there. He also wants to get with Marylou on the rebound when Dean reunites with Camille, which he inevitably will.

The men meet up with Carlo who is now much more mature than they are and lectures them about where they are going in life. They leave him, and Dean asks Sal if he will have sex with Marylou while he watches so he can see what she is like having sex with another man. Sal tries but tells Dean that he is not into it and would like to wait until they get back west. Dean sleeps with her instead and Sal feels as though Dean must do this to feel what life is about.

Sal calls his friend Bull Lee who lives in New Orleans and has been taking care of Galatea and tells him that they will be there to pick her up soon. They set out again doing the thing they do best, moving. They are all tremendously excited at the fun they are going to have in New Orleans, and everyone is in excellent spirits.

Dean and Marylou make plans to continue their relationship behind Camille’s back when they get to California, and Sal sadly realizes that he will not get his chance with Marylou. The group stops in D.C. on inauguration day and are pulled over by the cops who accuse them of trafficking Marylou for prostitution. They eventually only fine Dean but still Sal rants about cops invading people’s privacy and creating crimes that were not committing just for the sake of punishing people.

Eventually, a few hitchhikers and much stolen gas and cigarettes later, the group reaches New Orleans. They reach Bull Lee’s house and Ed and Galatea are reunited. Bull Lee is a drug addict and a schizophrenic who works odd jobs to support his and his wife’s drug habits. Bull is around crazy people all the time in New Orleans but feels as though Dean is one of the craziest he has met.

Bull’s wife Jane has a nasty Benzedrine habit and is slowly deteriorating because of it. Sal finds Jane and Bull’s relationship to be refreshing and something that he is looking forward to having someday. The group heads to the French Quarter to hit a dull bar and on the ferry on the way back to Bull’s house a girl kills herself. When they return, Marylou cannot take enough drugs to quench her desire and everyone else smokes weed and gets drunk.

In the morning, Bull shares his views on government conspiracies, his possible cure for cancer, his relatives who may be crazier than he is, and his belief that someday soon people will be able to speak with those who are dead. Later in the day everyone competes in athletic competitions at the Lee house, and Dean wins every one of them.

The group decides to leave the Lees and New Orleans and head out west. As they are driving away Sal muses that it is strange watching people as they become tiny specs in the distance as the car drives away. On the way out of town, they steal food, gas, and cigarettes and go about their journey.

They drive through Texas, and some bad weather, get their car stuck in the mud and are nearly killed by a car full of drunks who run them off the road. Marylou begins to talk to Sal about San Francisco and the possibility of them having a relationship when they get there, but it is probable that she is merely securing a backup plan for when Dean leaves her for Camille again. Dean convinces Marylou to get naked and run through the fields of sage with him and then they all get back into the front seat of the car and continue on.

Marylou makes an attempt to come on to Sal again, and he turns her down. She tells him that she loves Dean but knows he will leave her as always. Sal decides he will look up his friend Hingham who owed him five dollars when they reach Tucson and in the meantime he pawns his pocket watch for a dollar to buy gas.

When they meet up with Hingham, he gives Sal his money and also feeds them before they set out again. Sal again notices his friends getting smaller in the distance as they drive away. They pick up a hitcher who says he will give them money in Bakersfield, and he does. Once in California Dean goes off to find Camille and Sal and Marylou get a hotel room.

Sal realizes nothing is going to happen with them and allows his mind to wander to thoughts of religion. Marylou leaves Sal for a club owner and he ends up wandering around San Francisco all alone. Sal meets up with Dean again and takes a job as a door-to-door salesman with him.

They tire quickly of living in the real world and start to go crazy once again, thirsting for adventure, after they see a performance by Sam Gaillard, a Jazz musician. Sal starts to become abundantly overwhelmed by Dean and his madness and decides he must return to New York immediately and thinking it possible that he may never see Dean again.

Summary – Part Three

In Spring 1946 Sal heads back to Denver. None of Sal’s friends are living in Denver anymore, but he thinks about settling down there anyway. He takes work at a fruit market and walks around hating the hand he was dealt in life. He hates that he is white and would rather be any other race. He knows a girl who is wealthy, and she gives him one hundred dollars to get to San Francisco on.

As soon as Sal gets to San Francisco he goes to see Dean. Dean has been living with Camille and has a daughter with her and was just beginning to settle down finally. Camille knows that the appearance of Sal will bring out the old Dean, and he will be mad once again. Dean tells Sal about his life over the past year.

He smoked some bad weed which made him go crazy, and he pulled a gun on Marylou and told her that one of them must die. She left him and married someone else after that. Sal notices that Dean seems to care about nothing, as always, but also care about everything. Sal tells Dean about the book he is getting published and they decide to go to Italy on the money from the book.

Sal and Dean decide to spend a couple more days in San Francisco before they leave and try to get into contact with some old friends. Remi is no longer living in the same place; Ed has run out on Galatea again, so they take up with Galatea, a girl named Marie and Roy Johnson and his wife Dorothy.

The women get on Dean about his treatment of the Marylou and Camille. Sal tries to convince them that Dean possesses the trait that everyone wishes they had and has found what everyone else is looking for. He compares Dean to God and their group as his disciples. It becomes clear that Sal is the only person who places Dean on the pedestal that he does as the women clearly do not agree with Sal’s assessment of him.

The group spends their last night together in San Francisco at a jazz club. Sal believes he has never seen anyone with Dean’s intensity and compares him to the “tenorman” who is the person responsible for driving the music for the entire club. Sal and Dean leave the club with the tenorman and his son and go to another club.

The musician at this club strongly reminds Sal and Dean of Carlo Marx. Roy takes them to another club and Sal and Dean end up going home with a musician to chat and drink some more. The next morning the boys get their things from Galatea’s house and head out on the journey back to New York.

When the boys hitch their first ride, Dean explains to Sal was “it” is. He tells Sal that the tenorman the night before had “it” and “it” is a means of being out of body and having a command of time and the soul. Sal and Dean both feel that they have “it”, though obviously they do not or they would not be in constant motion looking for something to make them feel. They discuss their childhoods and the driver of the car, who is gay, tries to come on to Dean.

Dean does not accept him advances, but he does convince the driver to allow him to drive the following day. Dean’s driving is reckless, as is everything about his life, and he scares the others in the care.

Dean and Sal do not seem to notice the reactions of the other passengers because they are deep in conversation about the meaning of life. Eventually the car makes it to Denver, where Dean and Sal are left on the side of the road.

Sal and Dean stop at a diner in Denver where Dean makes a joke about Sal being old. Sal gets terribly upset with Dean, and it causes Dean to cry. Sal feels terrible for making Dean cry and realizes, yet again, that he does not know who he is anymore.

The guys stay with some Okies that Sal knows while they await the arrival of Dean’s cousin Sam. Sam is one of the only members of Dean’s family that he has genuine love and respect for, and one of the only members to ever be affectionate toward Dean.

Sal assumes that they are going to run some sort of scam on Sam for money, drugs, or a ride, but Dean tells Sal that he really just wants to catch up. When Sam arrives he drives the guys around but tells Dean that the only reason he actually came is to get Dean to sign a piece of paper that will cut him out of Sam’s will.

Sal feels guilty for being the only person who believes in Dean, but Dean still seems happy about the stories from the past that Sam reminisces about. Sam drops the boys off and they go to a carnival where Dean is pretty sure he is in love with a woman who is only three feet tall, though he cannot muster up the nerve to speak to her. Back at the Okies’ home Dean develops a crush on their thirteen year old daughter, as he has a thing for young girls.

Dean begins to go totally crazy and starts stealing things. He starts with stealing a softball and after a night of drinking he moves on to stealing cars. He steals multiple cars throughout the night, leaving the last one in the front yard at the Okies’ house before he passes out. The next day the cops come investigating because one of the cars he stole belonged to a cop. Sal tells Dean that they must dump the car so no one knows it was him.

Dean realizes that his fingerprints are already on file and decides that it is time to leave so he and Sal pack their things and head out again, though they are sad to leave the Okies. The boys head to the travel bureau to catch a ride, fearing the cab they called is a cop. They take a job driving a man’s limo to Chicago, and Dean wants to pick up women with it, but Sal is skeptical. Dean has sex with one woman in the back of it then picks up a couple boys that are hitching and takes them toward Chicago with him.

On the way to Chicago, Dean breaks the speedometer in the car because he is driving too fast and reckless. Dean decides to head to his friend Ed Wall’s ranch and on the way crashes the limo into a ditch. When they arrive at Ed’s house, Dean tries to convince him that Sal is rich, and the limo belongs to him, but Ed does not believe them and thinks that Dean has probably stolen the limo.

Sal is beginning to realize that he certainly is the last person who has any faith in Dean. When the boys continue on their way Dean drives recklessly, over one hundred miles per hour once again. The boys are excited to get to Chicago, but Sal cannot stand the way Dean is driving any longer and gets into the back seat so he does not have to watch.

In Iowa Dean gets into a small accident, thinks that things are ok with the other driver, and heads off again. Shortly after they are pulled over by a cop who says the other driver reported a hit and run. After the owner of the limo is called, the mess is straightened out, and the boys are set to be on their way yet again.

Dean continues to drive like a maniac, narrowly avoiding multiple accidents, and when the boys arrive at Chicago Sal realizes that they made it there in only seventeen hours. Sal and Dean stop at a YMCA to clean up, and they head out on the town. They go to a jazz club where they follow one band around until mid-morning.

The next day they listen to George Shearing play he is the musician that Dean said was like God when they were in San Francisco. The next morning they return the limo and hurry away before anyone notices the horrendous condition it is in. The boys take a bus to Detroit where Sal meets a country girl who is alone, and they talk about life. She seems to have no plans, nor does her family and Sal thinks that she seems to be lost.

Later, in a movie theater, Sal decides that he is a waste of life. They hitch a ride back to New York with a guy from the travel bureau who charges them each four dollars, and they head to see Sal’s aunt who has now moved to Long Island.

At a party, Sal introduces Dean to a woman named Inez who he seems really into. Inez ends up pregnant with his child as is Camille and both women are giving birth at basically the same time. At this point, Dean is father to four different children all over the country. With no job to support his children and no money, Dean and Sal decide it is not the right time to go to Italy.

Summary – Part Four

Sal has sold his book and made some money off of it, and Dean is living with Inez and working at a parking garage in New York City. Sal decides it is time to take another trip, though this time he is going to leave alone and leave Dean behind in the domestic life.

Dean pays Sal’s aunt the money he owes her from the speeding ticket she paid and she cooks them a big dinner. She tells Dean that he should stay with Inez and settle down instead of running off with Sal again. Dean tells Sal that they should become old bums together, and Sal says he hopes they can live down the street from each other one day, taking care of their families, which exactly what they had been trying to avoid for years now.

Sal hops on a bus that takes him south and meets a man named Henry Glass who has just gotten out of prison. Sal turns Henry into his new travel companion, and they head to Denver together where Sal still has friends. Once they arrive in Denver Henry’s brother starts him at a job to keep him on the straight and narrow. They meet up with Tim Gray and Stan Shepard and start planning a trip to Mexico.

The boys visit the local jazz clubs as they plan their excursion and Sal hears that Dean is on his way to Denver to join them and to drive Sal to Mexico. Sal has a vision of Dean as a “shrouded traveler” who travels all over the country leaving death and destruction everywhere he goes, which is kind of true.

Sal is not too happy that Dean is joining him because he wants Dean to take care of his children. Dean has just spent all of his money on a car which means there is no money left for him to care for his children with. Dean’s arrival means the entire trip much change slightly.

When Dean finally arrives, Sal is not as upset as he thought he would be. They fall right into step as Dean being the mad one and Sal following him everywhere he goes, admiring him, because he cannot help himself. They visit Ed and Galatea and learn that they are thinking of settling down and starting a family.

No one is impressed with Dean’s antics any longer, not do they find his madness fun and refreshing, they just look annoyed with him and slightly uncomfortable. Sal and Dean continue to get rip-roaring drunk, and Sal punches a wall causing him to break a finger. The next day Sal, Dean, and Stan leave for their Mexico trip, where Dean is sure they will finally find “it”. Barely into their trip Stan is stung in the arm by some sort of bug and the boys decide they must take him to a hospital.

On the way, they share stories in great detail, about their lives and Stan’s experiences in Europe. At the hospital, Stan gets a shot of penicillin then Dean sets out to find a pool hall. Finally at three in the morning the boys enter Mexico, excited and turn their money into pesos. They are happy and awed to see that Mexico looks exactly as they thought it would.

Sal and Dean feel as though they have found exactly what they have been looking for, the true roots of the beat life. They love everything that is surrounding them and are hugely excited to discover all they possibly can.

They meet a man named Victor while they are in Gregoria and he tells them that he will hook them up with pot and girls while they are there. His mother grows the pot herself and Victor rolls a joint bigger than the boys have ever seen which gets them exceptionally high.

Victor takes the guys to find girls and on the way Sal begins to hallucinate where he has visions of Dean as God, and FDR. After the group meets Victor’s young son, they all have a stab of pining for the domestic life. Quickly over that feeling, the boys head toward the brothel.

At the brothel, they are treated like royalty. The guys get to know the various girls and drink and party with them as the people of the town watch through the windows. Sal has the opportunity to have sex with a few different girls but instead just wants to see them naked and give them money that he feels they desperately need. He is again feeling the paternal instinct that he has been feeling most of the trip and decides that he does not want to use the girls, and he feels like he may be in love with the sad fifteen year old one. The boys eventually decide it is time to leave after their tab has reached nearly $40. The girls and the people of the town cheer for them as they are leaving.

When they leave the car lights are not working so they begin to drive through the jungle in the dark. When the lights finally come on they are in awe of their surroundings. The boys decide to pull over the sleep in the car for the night, but Sal is so in tune with his environment he decides to sleep on the hood of the car. When Sal wakes he sees a white horse come out of the jungle then disappear back in it.

Dean feels as though Sal was probably dreaming, but he remembers dreaming a white horse too so maybe it was real. Sal sees all of the bugs at his feet and the blood he is covered in from getting eaten alive by bugs all night and freaks out a little.

On the way to Mexico City, they drive through the mountains where they meet some Indians. Dean is in awe of the little Indian children who are selling crystals on the side of the road. He is obsessed with the differences in their culture and that of the typical white man and is heartbroken by leaving them behind.

Dean gives one of the girls his pocket watch, and Sal compares him to a prophet. Once the boys reach Mexico City they realize it is a true city that never sleeps, it is in constant motion and they spend the entire night walking around and drinking in their surroundings. Sal gets terribly sick, and they discover that he has dysentery. While Sal is on his sick bed, Dean tells him that he is going to get a quick divorce from Camille and move to New York to be with Inez. Stan decides to stay with Sal until he gets better and Sal is annoyed with Dean for leaving him, though he understand that Dean lives a complicated life.

Summary – Part Five

In part five Dean moves back to New York and marries Inez, though the next day he has a bit of a freak out and jumps on a bus back to San Francisco to live with Camille and their two children. When Sal returns to New York he finally meets the girl he had spent so much time dreaming about, her name is Laura.

They wish to move to San Francisco together and write to Dean to tell him. Dean responds with an unusually long letter telling them that he wants to come to New York and help them move, and to pick out the moving truck. When Dean arrives he is too early because they do not have enough money saved up yet.

Dean wants to bring Inez back to San Francisco with him, where he lives with Camille, but Inez wants nothing to do with him anymore. Sal knows that Dean will spend the rest of his life with Camille, and he is happy for them and for their life. Remi shows up to take Sal and Laura to the opera, and Dean wants to ride in Remi’s car though Remi tells him no.

At this point, Sal must choose between Remi and Dean, or really, between Dean and the life that he has now. Sal chooses Remi and watches Dean getting smaller and smaller out the back window of the car. He thinks about Dean and the trips they took as sits on a pier in New Jersey.