LOWELL, Mass. – Some read with an actor’s exuberance, some plowed straight ahead, others read with subtlety and a smile.

As he listened Wednesday to different voices begin a marathon reading of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” Kerouac fan Frank Wagner found each reader sparked a similar reaction.

“I found myself tapping my foot,” Wagner said. “You get the rhythm, you get the feel, you get the beat.”

The reading in Kerouac’s native Lowell was a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the publication of “On the Road,” a stream-of-consciousness chronicle of his cross-country wanderings. Poets and politicians joined fans to read passages from his signature work in a 12-hour session at a downtown deli and coffee shop.

The readers, about 60 in all, read from various editions of “On the Road” as people moved in and out of the seats in front of them. Some in the audience laughed, others followed along in their own copies of the book.

Sharing the book with a roomful of people and listening to each reader’s interpretation expands the book’s meaning, said reader Lloyd Schwartz, a University of Massachusetts-Boston professor who won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1994.

“When you read a book on your own, you hear your own voice,” he said. “It’s instructive and moving to hear what it sounds like in someone else’s head.”

Local actor Jerry Bisantz, who dressed as Kerouac in flannel and slacks for his reading, said hearing “On the Road” out loud brings out the “jazzy beat” in which Kerouac wrote it: “There’s a rhythm and a pulse to what he wrote,” he said.

Bisantz added that Lowell is the only place for such a tribute.

“This is Jack’s city,” he said. “Every one of these streets, he walked. There’s a palpable feeling of Jack.”

Kerouac was born in Lowell in 1922 to French-Canadian immigrants. He left for New York to play football at Columbia University, and met Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and other writers who became the core of what Kerouac dubbed “The Beat Generation.”

“On the Road” was a critical smash after its 1957 publication, and Kerouac was hailed by some as the voice of a generation. Kerouac kept in touch with Lowell, where his reputation was mixed, and many still remember him as a rogue. He died in Florida in 1969.

For Wagner, who traveled from Brenham, Texas, to pay tribute to the author, Kerouac’s imperfections make his work more powerful and accessible.

Wagner remembers being stunned when he read a passage of “On the Road” in which Kerouac writes of walking through a minority section of Denver “wishing I were a Negro.” Wagner shared Kerouac’s appreciation for minority cultures, and that hook got Wagner into Kerouac’s work, which he devoured.

“This was a man who was a brother to me,” Wagner said. “He loved everything I loved. He’s not a guy I looked up to, but a guy I hung out with growing up.”

Kerouac was an inspiration for 19-year-old Chantal Brouillard. She took “On the Road,” a pickup truck and $6,000 she saved waitressing on a six-month, cross-country road trip that ended in March.

The Castine, Maine, native’s journey wound through New York City, Missouri, Santa Fe, the Grand Canyon and San Francisco, among other places. Kerouac’s fearlessness about meeting new things and new people helped empower her, Brouillard said, to explore a country more diverse than she’d imagined.

Brouillard was scheduled to read a passage from her well-worn copy of “On the Road” on Wednesday evening. She seemed a little nervous, admitting she hadn’t practiced her entire section out loud, but also confident no one would care much if she fumbled a word or two.

When it’s over, Brouillard said, she’ll be on the road again. She’s driving cross country to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., to start college this fall.