Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jack Kerouac was an American novelist and poet who lived from the 12th of March 1922 to the 21st of October 1969. Alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, he was a pioneer of the Beat Generation, and he is best known for his 1957 novel On the Road. He is recognized for his style of stream of consciousness spontaneous prose.
Kerouac completed On the Road in April 1951, typing the final draft in 20 days. He taped sheets of tracing paper into a roll 120 feet long and fed it into his typewriter so he could write without reloading pages. His wife Joan Haverty supplied him with benzedrine, cigarettes, pea soup, and coffee to keep him going.
Kerouac never felt comfortable with the title King of the Beats and was openly critical of the counterculture his work helped inspire. He once said, "I'm not a beatnik. I'm a Catholic," and he despised the hippies while mostly remaining uninterested in politics.
Kerouac died on the 21st of October 1969 at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the age of 47. The cause was an internal hemorrhage from bleeding esophageal varices caused by cirrhosis, the result of longtime alcohol abuse. He was buried at Edson Cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Kerouac grew up speaking French in his Lowell, Massachusetts home, the child of French Canadian parents Leo and Gabrielle. He learned English at school around age six and spoke with a marked accent into his late teens. He also wrote unpublished works in French, including the novella Sur le chemin.
Kerouac greatly influenced cultural icons of the 1960s, including Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jerry Garcia, and the Doors. Ray Manzarek of the Doors wrote, "I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written On the Road, The Doors would never have existed." Patti Smith, Tom Waits, and the Grateful Dead also credit him as an influence.