Goodreads asked Bruce Paley:

Who is your favorite fictional couple, and why?

Bruce Paley Without hesitation I can say that my favourite fictional couple is Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty from Jack Kerouac's seminal novel On the Road. In 1968 my teenage girlfriend and I set out to hitch-hike to California, and while we parted our ways in Peoria, Illinois (shortly after all our possessions had been stolen), I went on to California by myself, and had all sorts of (mis)adventures, including a spell in an Oklahoma jail, a mad 300-mile ride on a 1250cc Harley, sleeping on a Saturday night in a parked car in an auto dealership and waking up the next morning gasping for air (I had foolishly closed all the windows tight), getting stuck on the Texas panhandle in 100º heat, getting a 1000-mile from some kids from New York who had stolen their mother's car, stealing my way across the USA by nicking sandwiches, candy bars, and even light clothing from gas stations and truck stops, and arriving in LA with - literally - 2¢ in my pocket. Back in New York, I was telling a friend about my adventures when he suggested I read this book called On the Road. Not only was Kerouac voicing some of my thoughts and name-checking some of the same places I had just been (like Terre Haute, Indiana) but I found myself empathising with Kerouac via his alter ego character Sal Paradise - there is a vein of sadness that runs through all of Kerouac's books that really touched me.
And so a hero was born....

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