Found in a crime boss's files: 'lost' chapter of Kerouac's life on the road

A "very significant" unpublished story by Jack Kerouac described as "a lost chapter of the On the Road saga" has been discovered after languishing in the files of an assassinated Mafia crime boss for at least 40 years.

- David Barnett

The two-page typewritten manuscript signed by Kerouac in green ink is titled The Holy, Beat, and Crazy Next Thing and is dated 15 April 1957, five months before his classic of beat literature, On the Road, was published.

It was discovered last year during the disposal of items owned by Paul Castellano, who ran the feared Gambino crime family in New York from 1976 until he was murdered in a hail of gunfire on 16 December 1985.

The assassination was orchestrated by John Gotti, a Gambino boss who was dissatisfied with Castellano's leadership and took over the organisation after the hit. He was convicted of the murder of the 70-year-old Castellano in 1992 and died in prison 10 years later.

It is not known how or when Castellano acquired the Kerouac story. According to the company that bought it from his estate, Your Own Museum, it is thought to have originally been given to a San Francisco poet in the Beat Generation circle. They say: “It has remained in private hands, meticulously preserved, for over six decades. It is a direct, tangible link to the moment the Beat Generation exploded into the American consciousness.”

The company adds: “As was his known practice during this fertile time, he [Kerouac] would often produce unique, typewritten pamphlets and chapbooks - sometimes referred to as 'brochures' by his circle - for friends, lovers, and patrons. These were not commercial publications but rather personal literary artefacts, gifts from the artist himself, typed by his own hand on his signature long-sheet roll paper and often bound simply.”