Dibs

According to the Lowell Sun in Jack Kerouac’s Massachusetts hometown, the executor of Kerouac’s literary estate says he signed a contract on Sunday with Viking/Penguin to publish an unedited version of On the Road next year — exactly as it appeared in its original “scroll” version, typed over three weeks on one continuous 120-foot roll of paper by the author, based on notes and memories about that transcendental 1947 road trip. A substantially edited version was published by Viking in 1957. “Incidents in the original were edited out of the published version because of the censorship of the time,” the paper quotes John Sampas as saying, adding: “Portions of the edited sections refer to drugs and sex.” Sampas said: “On the scroll, entire paragraphs are crossed out and not included in the published version.” The original scroll was purchased in 2001 for $2.43 million by James Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League and is touring the country, with stops in select museums and libraries. John Sampas, the brother of Kerouac’s third and last wife Stella Sampas, “has enlisted a group of four young Kerouac scholars well-studied in British and American literature to help edit the project. Sampas says he met them last October at UMass Lowell’s Kerouac symposium, which takes place during the annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! Festival.” Now this is really bangtail news, man, which burns burns burns like Roman candles.