Sal Paradise

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Sal Paradise is the narrator and the protagonist in Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road. Sal, an Italian-American youth living in New Jersey with his aunt, is an uninspired writer working on a book who follows and accompanies a friend's friend, Dean Moriarty, a young and reckless Denver vagrant, on his journeys across America and therefore describes us his trips with and without Dean in search of kicks.

On the Road is known as a semi-autobiographic story, and Jack Kerouac admitted himself being Sal Paradise, when the journalists asked him if he was Dean Moriarty, who was actually inspired by another Beat hero and a close friend of Kerouac, Neal Cassady. Indeed, the connections between Sal and Kerouac are significant. Jack, coming from a French origin himself, created Sal as an Italian-American based on his life; when Sal lives with his aunt in New Jersey, Kerouac lived with his mother in New York.

Sal Paradise is a widely known 20th Century fictional Beat character and one of the pioneers of modern fiction.

Sal Paradise is referenced in the song Stuck Between Stations by The Hold Steady on the album Boys and Girls in America