But Jack Kerouac’s reaction makes me smile. After he searched for smokes from Desolation Peak Lookout in Washington during one summer in the 1950s, Kerouac complained that his brain was “in ...

Andrew O'Hagan looks at a critical point in the life of Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac. In 1956 he spent spent 63 soul-searching days as a fire-watcher on Washington state's Desolation Peak.