Atop an Underwood, Jack Kerouac
Atop an Underwood, Jack Kerouac
List: $22.95 | Sale: $16.07
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Atop an Underwood
Early Stories and Other Writings

Author: Jack Kerouac, Paul Marion

Narrator: Andrew Eiden, Bronson Pinchot

Unabridged: 8 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/02/2024

Synopsis

Before Jack Kerouac expressed the spirit of a generation in his 1957 classic On the Road, he spent years figuring out how he wanted to live and, above all, learning how to write.Atop an Underwood brings together more than sixty previously unpublished works that Kerouac wrote before he was twenty-two, ranging from stories and poems to plays and parts of novels, including an excerpt from his 1943 merchant marine novel, The Sea Is My Brother. These writings reveal what Kerouac was thinking, doing, and dreaming during his formative years and reflect his primary literary influences. Listeners will also find in these works the source of Kerouac’s spontaneous prose style.Uncovering a fascinating missing link in Kerouac’s development as a writer, Atop an Underwood is essential listening for Kerouac fans, scholars, and critics.

About Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) was an American novelist and poet who influenced generations of writers. He is recognized for his spontaneous prose style and for being a pioneer of the Beat Generation.

About Andrew Eiden

Andrew Eiden is an actor and winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award for narration. He has been acting since the age of four, working at regional theaters, in national commercials, and on numerous television shows.

About Bronson Pinchot

Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sara on July 01, 2007

READ THIS. it's fantastic. there are a few stories that i skipped over because they were not very interesting to me (such as a baseball story) but every short story is so beautifully written, and the ideas he presents will really make you think.......more

Goodreads review by Marley on December 08, 2011

Whenver I read Kerouac, I'm re-inspired to carry around a notebook and write whatever I see. Even early Kerouac speaks to me.......more

Goodreads review by Simon on March 26, 2012

Atop An Underwood By Jack Kerouac Edited by Paul Marion "Early Stories and Other Writings" 1936-1943 I haven't read any great Kerouac in a very long time indeed, this is by far the best collection of previously unissued writings by Jack that I have come across. Published by penguin I got my copy from......more

Goodreads review by Jerry on January 31, 2012

This was a wonderful book that reveals the talent that was abundant from the get go for a young Jack Kerouac who understood his calling to be a writer as an adolescent and never waivered his entire life. These pre- On The Road writings are a treasure for any true kerouac fan.......more

Goodreads review by Mat on December 05, 2011

This book was truly an excellent surprise! Reading this book shows you just how good Jack already was when he wrote these stories (I think he was around 20 when he wrote 'The Sea is My Brother'). My favourites in this collection were the selected excerpts from 'The Sea is My Brother' (which incident......more

Quotes

“This is a Jack Kerouac developing his skills, awaiting his muse.”

“Offers a wonderful glimpse into the author’s formative years.”

“It’s good to dip into the early writings and see the confident, hopeful Jack Kerouac who was the source of his own dreams.”

“Kerouac’s intense desire to be a writer hit him early and stayed with him his entire life. This passion colors all of his early stuff…And his themes are all here: America, travel, jazz, the delicate presence of death…The passion Kerouac brought to all of his writing is here.”

“Atop an Underwood is indispensable for the reader who wants to chart the development of one of our talented writers.”

“Provide[s] a tantalizing glimpse of the future Beat generation originator, spanning Kerouac’s adolescence and his first years in New York.”

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