"Theado contends that despite Kerouac's goal of becoming a legend through his writing, his work has never satisfactorily fit into a unified scheme. Theado finds, however, that when the books are considered in the order they were written, themes and motifs appear, mutate, and reappear. He shows that The Town and the City, Kerouac's first published novel, introduces basic thematic concerns that are developed and explored in later books. Theado offers close readings of the works that make up the "Duluoz Legend"--Kerouac's series of barely fictionalized re-creations of his life - and reveals how his awareness of his writing self increased over the course of his career." "Proposing that the real legend of Jack Kerouac is the saga of a writer at work, Theado suggests that as recognition of Kerouac's artistic achievement grows, the Duluoz Legend outgrows the genre of autobiography and becomes an intimate chronicle of a writer's stylistic maturation. Theado traces Kerouac's development as a crafter of language and contends that spontaneous prose, Kerouac's literary hallmark, may prove to be his chief claim to literary longevity."--Jacket.