This book explores the life and authorial development of Jack Kerouac through previously unpublished papers, letters, and other literary artifacts.

In Running Through Heaven: Visions of Jack Kerouac, Jacob Loewentheil tells the father of the Beat generation's story through letters, several unpublished manuscripts, notable copies of Kerouac's major works, literary artifacts, and personal items. These physical objects convey quirks, habits, and intimate facets of Kerouac's character, showing the writer in the making. His early letters, many previously unpublished and from Loewentheil's own collection, shed light on his emerging and highly influential stream of consciousness style.

Running Through Heaven testifies to the richness of Kerouac's writing, his lifelong love of education, his complex relationship with religion, the tensions and contradictions in his sexuality, his influence on other writers, his turn toward conservatism, and his pivotal relationship with his mother. To fixate on the continuing popularity of On the Road is to miss Kerouac's legacy, which extends far beyond literary circles.