Jack Kerouac, the famed American novelist, wrote the postwar Beat Generation novel, "On the Road," which documented his travels as he journeyed across America. One chapter in the book focuses on Kerouac's sexual relationship with a Latina farm worker, who Kerouac called "Terry, the Mexican girl," a woman who was fleeing from an abusive husband and left her two children behind to do so. Novelist, performance artist and poet Tim Z. Hernandez uncovered "the Mexican girl's" true identity, Bea Franco, and created his own work, "Mañana Means Heaven," about Franco's life.

"Mañana Means Heaven" chronicles the life of the woman behind the forbidden affair with the budding author, Kerouac, in a work that has been described as 70 percent truth and 30 percent fiction. Hernandez spent time with Franco and her family, observing her story before she died earlier this year.

Franco's story caught Hernandez's attention when he was attending Naropa University, which is fondly called the 'Jack Kerouac school.' The chapter in "On the Road" that featured "Terry," jumped out at Hernandez. He wondered what it would be like for someone to give her account of the 15 days that she spent with Kerouac. He credited his identification with Fresno, and his family's migrant farmer background for his interest.

While researching, Hernandez discovered 22 books about Kerouac that mentioned her, though none of which told her story. Hernandez began with the intention of writing a fictionalized version of events, drawing personal conclusions about Franco and family through extensive research and his imagination, but that idea changed during development. Hernandez began the work in 2008. He spent months writing and rewriting, revisiting and trying to witness and engage the world from Franco's perspective. He wrote 100 pages of fiction before he found her and met her family, and then he start all over again, drawing in audio, videos and interviews to help fuel the life of the novel.

"Long monologues in the book were written verbatim. I wanted the reader to feel like she was talking to them. And, then, of course, the issue of proving that this was the Bea Franco of Kerouac's book. That's why the book ends with nonfiction," Hernandez said of his intentions and novel writing process.

Hernandez footed bill for the extensive research, which was he conducted because he simply believed in the work he was doing. He made a point of saying that more and more writers are putting personal funds behind projects that inspire this. He did research while working a full-time job, and helping to support his wife and three children. But, it was worth it to share Franco's life to the public and provide perspective and sources on Franco's pain and motivations.

"I could tell that when she spoke about her father, there was still a lot of resentment and anger in her voice - disdain, actually. In Kerouac's version, she's leaving her husband, but in my interviews with her, it was clear that she was leaving her father, too," Hernandez said. "Her father was somebody she tried to get away from her whole life. She hated him. She had tried to leave her husband many times, and her father would tell him where she was."

"Mañana Means Heaven" weaves in fresh storytelling, draws in knowledge of California Central Valley, and expands on Kerouac's understanding of what it meant to be the young "innocent" migrant farmer who was looking to change her life.  

"Kerouac portrayed her as a sort of damsel in distress, but she wasn't like that at all," Hernandez explained. "She was someone who, when she was young, was making choices in which she stepped out of the traditional Latina role. "