Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty (based on Neal Cassady) crisscross America, looking for kicks, looking for meaning, looking for something that keeps receding. Kerouac wrote the first draft in three weeks on a continuous scroll of paper in 1951; it took six years to find publication. The novel defined the Beat Generation and created a template for American restlessness. The prose moves like jazz, or like the road itself. Dean's energy is contagious; his inability to stay anywhere is both glorious and sad.