In the end he is more truthful, entertaining and honest than most writers on the American scene. Her story is heroin. And that's it. Inevitably, in sizing up the work of Kerouac and the other rhapsody Beat poets, the critic is numbed by their sustained orgy of screaming. It is easy enough to internalize disgust with all the pompous fools who manage huge societies like ours.
Silence is one reaction.
The Beat Expression is another, out of which there is never any silence. After a while Beat prose becomes too programmatic. Life-time squares even get into the act. All that was once chaotic, right, original, raw, smarting, has little yardage left. I have heard Kerouac's recent work so characterized.