John Montgomery, who appears under various aliases in two novels by Jack Kerouac, is a man of prodigious learning and multifarious activities, which include the compilation of a vast chronicle of the Beat Generation and the writing and laying aside of entire volumes of poetry. He is virtually unknown as a writer, yet he is one of the most interesting and original poets in America.

Although Kerouac was fascinated by John Montgomery, he was pleasantly baffled by this man, whom he called a "big analytical satirist of the whole scene," and by Montgomery's "endless muttering monologue of poems to himself or anyone who listened day or night." The sense of eccentricity and of a certain irascibility makes Montgomery one of Kerouac's most memorable characters.

It is Montgomery, as Henry Morley, who accompanies Ray Smith (Kerouac) and Japhy Ryder (Gary Snyder) to the Matterhorn in Kerouac's novel The Dharma...