In the novel, the character of Mardou Fox is African American and Cherokee, as was the actual woman Jack Kerouac based the character on.
"Subterraneans" author Jack Kerouac was disturbed that his friend, author John Clellon Holmes, managed to get his "Beat Generation" novel "Go" into print before his own was published ("Go", in which Kerouac is a main character, was published in 1952, while "On the Road" was not published until 1957). Kerouac was worried that Holmes was plagiarizing him, although Holmes was careful to credit Kerouac with creating the term "Beat" for their generation, and much of the material was common amongst them and other writers of their circle, such as Allen Ginsberg. Ironically, producer Albert Zugsmith outfoxed Kerouac by copyrighting the term "The Beat Generation", which he used as the title of an egregious film. The 1960 movie of "The Subterraneans", made by a top studio with top talent, proved to be a major disappointment as it grossly misrepresented the scene (as well as Kerouac's novel), but ironically, it is probably the premier movie about the Beats, as so few "Beat" movies were made, the phenomenon occurring during a time of strict screen censorship in the United States. By the time censorship was lifted in 1968, the Beats had been supplanted by the Hippies.
In 1958, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer paid Jack Kerouac $15,000 (approximately $100,000 in 2006 dollars) for the rights to his book. Kerouac used the money to buy a house in Long Island, the first he had ever owned.
The love affair the autobiographical novel by Jack Kerouac is based upon took place in New York City, but Grove Press, Kerouac's publisher, had him change the location to San Francisco to minimize exposure to libel suits.