The Subterraneans


The Subterraneans is a 1958 novella by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. It is a semi-fictional account of his short romance with Alene Lee, an African-American woman, in Greenwich Village, New York. Kerouac met Alene in the late summer of 1953 when she was typing up the manuscripts of William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, in Allen's Lower East Side apartment.
In the novella, Kerouac moved the story to San Francisco and renamed Alene Lee "Mardou Fox". She is described as a carefree spirit who frequents the jazz clubs and bars of the budding Beat scene of San Francisco. Other well-known personalities and friends from the author's life also appear thinly disguised in the novel. The character Frank Carmody is based on William S. Burroughs, and Adam Moorad on Allen Ginsberg. Even Gore Vidal appears as successful novelist Arial Lavalina. Kerouac's alter ego is named Leo Percepied, and his long-time friend Neal Cassady is mentioned only in passing as Leroy.

Character key

Kerouac often based his fictional characters on friends and family.
Real-life personCharacter name
Jack KerouacLeo Percepied
Anton RosenbergJulian Alexander
Iris BrodieRoxanne
William S. BurroughsFrank Carmody
Joan VollmerJane
Lucien CarrSam Vedder
Neal CassadyLeroy
Gregory CorsoYuri Gligoric
Allen EagerRoger Beloit
William GaddisHarold Sand
Allen GinsbergAdam Moorad
Luanne HendersonAnnie
John Clellon HolmesBalliol MacJones
Bill KeckFritz Nicholas
Alene LeeMardou Fox
Jerry NewmanLarry O'Hara
Gore VidalArial Lavalina
David DiamondSylvester Strauss

Criticism and literary significance

The novel, written as a first-person memoir, has been criticized for its portrayal of American minority groups, especially African Americans, in a superficial light, often portraying them in a humble and primitive manner without showing insight into their culture or social position at the time. The position of jazz and jazz culture is central to the novel, tying together the themes of Kerouac's writing here as elsewhere, and expressed in the "spontaneous prose" style in which he composed most of his works. The following quotation from Chapter 1 illustrates the spontaneous prose style of The Subterraneans:

Film version

A 1960 film adaptation changed the African American character Mardou Fox, Kerouac's love interest, to a young French girl to better fit both contemporary social and Hollywood palates. While it was derided and vehemently criticized by Allen Ginsberg, among others, for its two-dimensional characters, it illustrates the way the film industry attempted to exploit the emerging popularity of this culture as it grew in San Francisco and Greenwich Village, New York.