Semmelweis

Jack Kerouac and the Decline of the West Semmelweis

This is the first major attempt to examine the life and work of Jack Kerouac from the Right, to assess the damage that the Kerouac myth has done in Western culture, and to rescue the real Kerouac from the distortions and misrepresentations that characterize most of the works about him. Almost universally seen as a kind of proto-hippy figure who preached free love and the road of excess, author Semmelweis shows the ignored, reactionary side of Kerouac. Kerouac the patriot, Kerouac the devout Catholic, Kerouac the anti-communist and despiser of the 1960s counter-culture that claimed him, against his will, as an inspiration.