Jack Kerouac's life is examined through interviews with his contemporaries and friends including Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and William Burroughs. The film also employs recreations of Kerouac's life beginning with his Catholic childhood in Lowell, Massachusetts through his development as one of the most important modern American authors, to his self-destructive demise at the age of 49. Excerpts from most of Kerouac's novels are dramatized with narration from many of his acclaimed novels including "On The Road" "Big Sur" and "Visions of Cody".