Jack Kerouac and the Literary Imagination explores Kerouac's fiction, poetry, religious writing, private journals, and correspondence to reveal his aesthetic vision for American belle-lettres. The vision encompasses his fictional rewriting of his personal history, his life-long quest for spiritual enlightenment-both Christian and Buddhist-and his resolute belief in the blending of popular and academic cultural artifacts. The book features chapters on Some of the Dharma, Doctor Sax, On the Road, Desolation Angels, and Mexico City Blues and includes a discussion of Kerouac's influence on later writers, including Hunter Thompson and Bob Dylan.