I just finished reading Lonesome Traveler by Jack Kerouac yesterday. Kerouac has been one of my favorite writers for a long time and I've read most of his work. But I had never read Lonesome Traveler until I received it last month as a birthday gift from my in-laws. It is a great read.Lonesome Traveler is a series of autobiographical short stories about some of Kerouac's travels around the United States and the world. Readers of Kerouac will recognize some of the stories as inspirations for some of his pseudo-fictional work. For example, his sojourn as a fire lookout on Mount Desolation in Washington, was detailed in the Dharma Bums and was the major subject of Desolation Angels.
It's not his greatest work...but since it is a collection of short stories it does provide a glimpse into the style of one of America's greatest authors. His final chapter about the end of hoboing in America is a poignant description about the loss of innocence and trust in America. You can no longer hitchhike or ride the rails anymore, Kerouac laments, due to all the criminals out there. And because of that reality, no one trusts a backpacker in America anymore. And Kerouac was writing this in the late fifties.
