The New York Times gives “On the Road” a rave review

On September 5, 1957, "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac was published by Viking Press in New York. From the article:

"On September 5, 1957, New York Times writer Gilbert Millstein gives a rave review to “On the Road,” the second novel (hardly anyone had read the first) by a 35-year-old Columbia dropout named Jack Kerouac. “Jack went to bed obscure,” Kerouac’s girlfriend told a reporter, “and woke up famous.”

“On the Road” is an autobiographical novel about a series of cross-country automobile trips that Kerouac made between 1947 and 1950, both by himself and with his friend Neal Cassady. Cassady–Dean Moriarty in the book–was a colorful character, a charming and good-looking hustler, occasional car thief (or not-so-occasional: he claimed to have stolen more than 500 cars while growing up on the streets of Denver), and aspiring writer who accompanied Kerouac on most of his journeys. (Cassady usually drove; after a childhood car accident, Kerouac hated to be behind the wheel.) In fact, Kerouac was inspired by Cassady’s straightforward, vernacular writing style–the poet Frank O’Hara described it as “I do this, I do that”–and he adapted it to his own epic narrative: To tell the story of his journey, he just wrote down what happened."