SOURCE: “Kerouac: Writer without a Home,” in Un Homme Grand: Kerouac at the Crossroads of Many Cultures, edited by Pierre Anctil, Louis Dupont, Rémi Ferland, and Eric Waddell, Carleton University Press, 1990, pp. 19-39.

In the following essay, Nicosia examines the theme of homelessness in Kerouac's writings, as well as the biographical reasons behind the recurrent theme.

Near the end of his novel On the Road, Jack Kerouac's persona Sal Paradise sings a little poem:

Home in Missoula, Home in Truckee, Home in Opelousas, Ain't no home for me. Home in old Medora, Home in Wounded Knee, Home in Ogallala, Home I'll never be. 

It comes at a point in the book, based on Kerouac's own experience living with his mother, when the narrator is living with his aunt in New York. He has just sold a novel (The Town and the City) and has fine prospects of...