Which real-life writer inspired Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road?

Neal Cassady inspired Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

Cassady was a Denver-born writer and traveler who became part of the social circle surrounding Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. His energetic speech, restless travel, and complicated personal life strongly influenced the fictional Moriarty.

Kerouac based much of the novel’s material on journeys across the United States and Mexico. Cassady’s letters also influenced Kerouac’s prose style, especially its rapid, conversational flow and attention to spontaneous detail.

Cassady was not simply a fictional character under another name. The published novel reshaped real events and relationships, and its narrator Sal Paradise is also closely connected to Kerouac himself. Cassady later became associated with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and died in Mexico in 1968.