Doctor Sax: Jack Kerouac

"Doctor Sax" is Jack Kerouac's extraordinary autobiographical account of growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts, told through the voice of his fictional alter ego Jack Duluoz. Mingling memory and dream to capture the accents and texture of his childhood, Kerouac gives an unforgettable portrait of a boy whose vibrant internal life is populated by phantoms, chief amongst whom is the "ghost of the Pawtucketville night", Doctor Sax. Jack Kerouac began "Doctor Sax" in 1948, but wrote the greater part of it in 1952, when he was staying in Mexico with William Burroughs.