 "La nuit est ma femme" was written in early 1951 and completed a few days or weeks before he began the original English version of "On the Road", as many scholars, such as Paul Maher Jr., Joyce Johnson, Hassan Melehy, and Gabriel Anctil have pointed out.Kerouac's early writing, particularly his first novel "The Town and the City", was more conventional, and bore the strong influence of Thomas Wolfe.The technique Kerouac developed that later made him famous was heavily influenced by jazz, especially Bebop, and later, Buddhism, as well as the famous Joan Anderson letter written by Neal Cassady.