The Sea Is My Brother: The Lost Novel

By Jack Kerouac

Book Overview

In the spring of 1943, during a stint in the Merchant Marine, twenty-one-year old Jack Kerouac set out to write his first novel. Working diligently day and night to complete it by hand, he titled it The Sea Is My Brother . Now, nearly seventy years later, its long-awaited publication provides fascinating details and insight into the early life and development of an American literary icon. Written seven years before The Town and The City officially launched his writing career, The Sea Is My Brother marks a pivotal point in which Kerouac began laying the foundations for his pioneering method and signature style. A clear precursor to such landmark works as On the Road , The Dharma Bums , and Visions of Cody , it is an important formative work that bears all the hallmarks of classic Kerouac: the search for spiritual meaning in a materialistic world, spontaneous travel as the true road to freedom, late nights in bars and apartments engaged in intense conversation, the desperate urge to escape from society, and the strange, terrible beauty of loneliness.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306821257
• ISBN13: 9780306821257
• Release Date: March 2012
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Early Kerouac.

When reading this book you can tell it is the writing of a young aspiring author. This one by one of the greats Jack Kerouac. However, the writing is not as good as Jack’s later work. It is still worth reading to see his early writing and compare it to his later novels. I wish he would have wrote more about life at sea in the merchant marine. Still worth the read and ownership of book.