A Jack Kerouac Controversy Hits the Road

Fifty years after the publication of Jack Kerouac's Beat novel "On the Road," a new dispute has erupted around the famously peripatetic writer. The author of a noted Kerouac biography, "Memory Babe," Gerald Nicosia, is holding a press conference in Manhattan today, where he will claim that Viking Penguin has been removing his name from books it publishes on Kerouac and other Beat writers, at the request of the executor of the Kerouac estate, John Sampas.

Mr. Nicosia said "mountains of evidence" and press packets would be available. The publisher of Viking, Paul Slovak, told The New York Sun that Mr. Nicosia's claims were "absolutely untrue."

But Mr. Nicosia told the Sun that he was subject to a "blacklist" and "censorship," which he believes are in part a response to his having supported a lawsuit in 1994 by Kerouac's daughter, Jan Kerouac, who had sued the relatives of Jack Kerouac's third wife and widow, Stella Sampas, including her brother, the estate's executor, Mr. Sampas.

Jan Kerouac, who died in 1996, argued that the will of her grandmother, Gabrielle Kerouac, was forged.

(A case is still pending with a new plaintiff, Paul Blake Jr., who is Kerouac's nephew.)

Mr. Slovak said he saw no reason to "rehash" old issues that Mr. Nicosia has been raising for years.

Mr. Sampas, who was Kerouac's brother-in-law, likewise said that Mr. Nicosia was looking for publicity. He called Mr. Nicosia a "stalker of the Kerouac estate, especially me, and has been for many years."

Mr. Nicosia said he hadn't seen Mr. Sampas since 1995: "If I'm stalking, I'm not doing a very good job." Mr. Nicosia said that Viking had deliberately left him out of the bibliography of their new "scroll" edition of "On the Road."

While Mr. Nicosia declined to go into detail about his claims, saying that he would lay out evidence at the press conference, he did tell the Sun that the manuscript of Bill Morgan's "I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg," also published by Viking, originally contained Allen Ginsberg's reaction to first reading Mr. Nicosia's biography, which the poet called a "great book." But Mr. Nicosia said the text of Mr. Morgan's book was changed to "a new Kerouac biography," without Ginsberg's praise. Mr. Nicosia said references were apparently removed from another Viking book, John Leland's forthcoming "Why Kerouac Matters: The Lessons of On the Road (They're Not What You Think)."

Mr. Nicosia declined to elaborate, saying that he would substantiate his statements at the press conference. Mr. Nicosia called such examples "ethical violations" if not legal ones.

But Mr. Slovak said Mr. Sampas, the Kerouac Estate executor, had nothing to do with Mr. Morgan's or Mr. Leland's books.
Mr. Nicosia also told the Sun that Mr. Sampas pressured the filmmakers Doug and Judi Sharples by saying he would withhold permission to quote Kerouac if they kept Mr. Nicosia in their 2000 film about the author called "Go Moan For Man." Mr. Nicosia said the filmmakers refused.

Mr. Nicosia has been involved in other litigation over the years. When Jan Kerouac made Mr. Nicosia her literary executive, her two heirs, whom Mr. Nicosia said were collaborating with Mr. Sampas, later fought to have him removed.

The musician David Amram, who was a friend of Kerouac's, said he did not know about the specifics of Mr. Nicosia's allegations, but said, "This is the year to celebrate Jack." The focus in 2007 should be on the man and his work, he said. He praised Kerouac as someone who captured a spirit that still reverberates today. Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness style broke down barriers of postwar America and helped pave the way for the rebellious 1960s.

A number of Kerouac tributes are taking place this year. Later this month, the "scroll" manuscript of "On the Road" will be on display in Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Mass., where he was buried upon his death in 1969. The scroll will be part of an exhibition beginning November 9 at the New York Public Library, which bought most of Kerouac's archive in 2001.

A co-owner of St. Mark's Bookshop, Terry McCoy, said Kerouac, Ginsberg, and William Burroughs have always been among their top selling authors. He said the Beat writers' books are kept in a special section near the information desk, since they are among the most readily stolen and resold to street vendors in Greenwich Village.