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What was Jack Kerouac’s first published novel?

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Portrait of Jack Kerouac, American novelist and poet, looking over his shoulder in a collared shirt, circa 1965. — Jack Kerouac American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac, c. 1965.

Jack Kerouac’s first published novel was The Town & the City, which was released in 1950. While he had written a significant amount of material prior to this, including a novella written in 1944 that was not published until 2014, The Town & the City marked his debut as a published novelist. Although the book received favorable reviews at the time, it was noted for being stylistically derivative of the works of Thomas Wolfe.1