00:01I'd always dreamed of going west to see the country.
00:04And the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell.
00:09Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road, and it is a contender for the great American novel.
00:14It was the product of years, letters, diaries, drafts.
00:18It's one of the foundational texts for discovering America or discovering things outside of yourself.
00:24It's a manifesto of things that I had been feeling, and then suddenly Jack Kerouac made it real.
00:33Kerouac felt like an outsider. His family felt like outsiders, and he was always thinking, how do I fit in?
00:42Kerouac was such a figure of contradiction.
00:45There was this conservative side and this other wilder free side. It was a constant tug of war.
00:52Sometimes what comes out in some of his works isn't sainthood.
00:57I don't think most women of this moment would be able to overlook the misogyny.
01:04Kerouac wanted to get out and experience something bigger.
01:07With all the savage irresponsibility that that comes with.
01:10We're so fascinated by people who live fast and burn bright.
01:15And it's not like a perfect book, but here we are all these years later and we're talking about On the Road.
01:20On the Road's message was open yourself up to experience, take chances, gain knowledge.
01:32He sort of laid down, this is the way I did it.
01:36Now you do it your way.
01:37Going to college, going to my future, seeing what more of the world is like.
01:48I've only seen my dad three times in 50 years.
01:50This is not an easy visit, but it's a visit that I really have to do.
01:54Home is a feeling.
01:56I like to say home is where you park it.
01:58I needed a book like On the Road to say you're okay.
02:06That's why it really resonates, it's because it's about trying to figure out your own road, your own personal path.
02:12It's about the trip, not the destination.
02:15Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so, On the Road.
02:20Free to die, free to move, free to speak, free to choose or to believe.
02:28You
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