Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac is most often associated with the frenetic city life of New York City or San Francisco, but it’s in the quiet back streets of his native Lowell that you’ll find the writer’s soul. It’s here that Kerouac grew up, and it’s here he set much of his early fiction, including Visions of Gerard, Doctor Sax, Maggie Cassidy, Vanity of Duluoz, and his first published novel, The Town and the City.

And it’s also here that he came to die—when disillusioned with the acid tests and love-ins of the later beatniks he returned to embrace his native Catholicism and live out his last years with his mother as a lonely alcoholic. Lowell honors its wayward son with the Kerouac Commemorative (Eastern Canal Park, Bridge St.), a series of stone monoliths inscribed with passages from his writings and arranged in a Buddhist mandala on the riverfront.

Another popular pilgrimage site for beat-idolaters is his grave in Edson Cemetery (375 Gorham St.), where a simple headstone is engraved with a three-word epigraph chosen by his third wife: “He Honored Life.” Like Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris, it is often surrounded by flowers, scraps of poetry, and even bottles of cheap booze left by fans.

For information on more sites where Kerouac hung out in Lowell, stop by the Lowell National Historic Park Visitors Center (246 Market St., 978/970-5000, www.nps.gov/lowe, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. daily, free parking available), which has a guided-tour pamphlet, as well as a short film about Kerouac’s life shown daily at 4 p.m. Or visit during October, when latter-day beats fill the streets for Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! (877/537-6822, http://lckorg.tripod.com), an annual homage to the writer that includes readings of his works.