Kerouac Play Makes Big News

The world premiere of Jack Kerouac’s play “Beat Generation” made news coast to coast and around the world this week. Among the media outlets that published articles and reviews or broadcast reports were the Associated Press, Rolling Stone, WBUR and WGBH radio in Boston, the Sun, Howl in Lowell and WCAP and WUML radio here, the Globe and Herald in Boston, the Eagle Tribune of Andover/Lawrence, and more. The AP story ran in Kentucky’s Louisville Courier, the New Zealand Herald, the Guardian in the UK, and in hundreds of papers in between. The WBUR package was picked up by NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday today for national coverage.

Last week, Prof. Mike Millner of the UMass Lowell English Department was a guest on a BBC radio program, a talk show about Kerouac’s “On the Road,” which has been the subject of some “community reads” program in England. Last week, one of the major papers in England had coupons in its Sunday edition that could be redeemed at certain bookstores for a free copy of “On the Road” while supplies lasted. This was a tie-in to the movie version of the novel that opened in England this month.

Kerouac keeps making news.