Couple concluding Kerouac stops grand lady — is this On The Road? (7)
I believe the answer is:
macadam
'couple concluding kerouac stops grand lady is this on the road?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot see how they can define each other.
'lady is this on the road?' is the wordplay.
'lady' becomes 'Ada' (woman's name).
'is this' becomes 'mac' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'the road?' becomes 'M'.
'ada' after 'mac' is 'macada'.
'macada'+'m'='MACADAM'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for macadam that I've seen before include "Paving material" , "Tarmac" , "(Inventor of) road surface" , "stones on the way" , "Road surface made of broken stone and tar" .)