Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922. His first novel, The Town and the City, was published in 1950. He considered all of his "true story novels," including On the Road, to be chapters of "one vast book," his autobiographical Legend of Duluoz. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1969 at the age of forty-seven.Stephen Swinburne is the author of many books, including Saving Manatees, a Society of School Librarians International Honor Book, and Wiff and Dirty George: The Z.E.B.R.A. Incident. He lives in South Londonderry, Vermont.