When new work from an acclaimed writer surfaces years or even decades after their death, you can bet that there will be a story behind how that work came to light. Writer Claude McKay’s novel Amiable With Big Teeth was written in 1941 but not published until more than 70 years later, after the manuscript was found at Columbia University in 2009. What most archival literary finds generally do not involve, however, are ties to organized crime.
And yet that’s precisely the circumstances under which a previously-unpublished Jack Keroac short story was recently discovered. The story, titled “The Holy, Beat, and Crazy Next Thing,” shares characters with Kerouac’s best-known book, the novel On the Road. As Air Mail’s David Barnett recounts, the story was discovered among the possessions of the late crime boss Paul Castellano, who was murdered while en route to a steakhouse in 1985.
Barnett notes that a significant mystery remains: how Castellano wound up with the story in the first place. Air Mail reports that Your Own Museum purchased the story from Castellano’s heirs; a listing for it on the company’s website lists a retail price of $8,500. “This piece originates from the collection of a noted San Francisco-based poet and friend of the Ferlinghetti circle, who received it directly from the author,” the listing states.
What Can We Learn From Jack Kerouac’s Archives?
The writer would have been 100 this weekCuriously enough, the Kerouac story isn’t the only onetime possession of Castellano to be in the news this year. A mansion that Castellano owned on Staten Island went on the market earlier this year with an asking price of $18 million. If the house’s page on Zillow is any indication, its listing was taken down earlier this month.
This is also not the only news involving the Kerouac family this year. A new edition of the novel Baby Driver by Jan Kerouac — Jack’s daughter — is set to be published on November 11, 2025.
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