To file this report, intern Seth Fiegerman went on the road—about 15 blocks, to the main branch of the New York City Public Library.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live…” These words come early in On the Road, Jack Kerouac's somewhat fictional testament to coming of age with a restless American spirit. A spirit filled with grandiose dreams and the desire for adventure. These are the words of Sal Paradise, the narrator in the book, just before he embarks on his own cross-country adventure, tailing Dean Moriarty, the maddest of the mad.

In Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac On the Road, an exhibit at the New York Public Library commemorating the novel’s 50th anniversary, one can now see through Sal’s adventures to Kerouac’s own colorful life. On display are pictures and letters of Kerouac and his wide circle of friends, the mad ones, who together created the Beat movement in the 50’s. Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs are here, two of the writers Kerouac met in college at Columbia, as well as Neal Cassady, the real-life inspiration for Dean.

While the exhibit can be viewed as a scrapbook for the Beats, it resonates most, for me, as an emptying of the cluttered drawers in Kerouac’s head.

He originally typed On the Road in a 3-week speed-binge, on a single long scroll of paper (so that he wouldn’t have to stop to change paper in his typewriter). Some 60 feet of this scroll (nearly half) is on display. From the entrance, this relic unravels to the back wall of the room where it meets a simple portrait of a road, whose yellow dotted line extends to the vanishing point. The effect is obvious: this scroll is Kerouac’s road.

Yet, it would be deceptive to imagine that novel, or any other, came easy. Along each side of the scroll are dozens and dozens of Kerouac’s notebooks: diaries and journals that blend into novels. Entire pages are crossed out. Plots are entirely revised. Character names are swapped between his book sketches. The writer’s process is laid bare. Perhaps the true miracle here is how much he wrote in such a short life (he died at 47) thanks to the fruitful combination of “Benzadrine and wonderment.”

The exhibit is not without some surprising artifacts. Here, there is proof of some animosity he felt towards fellow Beats.  He is repulsed by a letter from Ginsberg which includes the line: “leaving for Mexico tonight – be a good angel.” Kerouac finds it effeminate, to say the least. At times, he is also bitter with himself, and the ‘Jack Kerouac’ depicted in the media.  He disliked that people associated him, and the movement, with Dean. “The beat generation is no hoodlumism,” he writes in one journal. And neither was he a hoodlum: he spent long periods later in life living with his mother.

In On the Road, Kerouac describes Dean’s soul as “wrapped up in a fast car, a coast to reach, and a woman at the end of the road.” For many, this quote may define the novel’s appeal. Hell, throw some alcohol into that mix and every male in their 20’s, then or now, will see themselves in Dean. But Kerouac identifies more with Sal Paradise, as someone aiming to rip apart the seams of a quiet life not just for adventure’s sake, but to awaken the spirit within.

Ultimately, Kerouac saw life, and the Beat movement, as part of this “spiritual quest.”  Throughout his life, he tried to shed the macho attitude of his young days as a football player, and embrace the beatific life.  But there are still some irrefutable traces of Dean in Kerouac. Most obviously, there is the sex list. Kerouac catalogued the women he had sex with over the years, labeling them as best he could. Number 42: Frisco gals Oakland San Pedro.  Number 42A: NYU Junkie.

A unique writer and an enlightening exhibit that are both good for the soul. While there, if you need a break from reading his scribbles, be sure to check out the recordings of Kerouac singing some old tunes. This will really make you appreciate his writing.