Sal Paradise, the autobiographical character in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, sums up his journey with the legendary line ‘[m] y whole wretched life swam before my weary eyes, and I realised no matter what you do it’s bound to be a waste of time in the end so you might as well go mad’. For Paradise, it is pointless trying to leave one’s mark, since, in the end, all will be forgotten. Kerouac’s musings have inspired young people across the Western and Western-influenced world for generations. Life is empty and meaningless so all we can do is seek meaningful experiences in the here and now.

The characters in this book beg to differ. For them it is this nihilist narrative itself that has reached the end of the road. They have found a different way. As Brian, a 60-something trade unionist of East European descent, put it:

As with so many young adults in the Western-influenced world, many of my friends are inspired by the Beatniks. This is frontier country, and the memory of the Beatniks lingers as a possible alternative to modern life. Some of my friends have experimented with the same mind-altering drugs and philosophies as Kerouac himself.