Jack Kerouac in 1965 wrote to his then-wife, Stella, “The fact of the matter is, I’m not a bestseller because people aren’t educated enough yet: Just wait and see what the Astronauts of the Year 2,000 B. C. [sic] will be reading on Venus and Mars (’t’wont be James Michener).”
The Lowell, Massachusetts, author was off the mark about interplanetary space explorers reading his books, and bestsellerdom to the self-effacing author was an unwelcome burden. But, willy-nilly, fame came his way and with it a spotlight on the place that inspired him, his hometown. Though his journeys took him far and wide, Lowell seemed fixed in his DNA, so it’s fitting that on his centennial he should be honored there with a year’s worth of events.
“I think the world’s ready
