The Sea Is My Brother, Jack Kerouac Introduction by Dawn Ward
The Sea Is My Brother, Jack Kerouac Introduction by Dawn Ward
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The Sea Is My Brother

Author: Jack Kerouac; Introduction by Dawn Ward

Narrator: Ray Porter

Unabridged: 4 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/20/2012


Synopsis

In the spring of 1943, during a stint in the merchant marine, twentyoneyearold Jack Kerouac set out to write his first novel. Working diligently day and night to complete it by hand, he titled itThe Sea Is My Brother. Nearly seventy years later, its longawaited publication provides fascinating details and insight into the early life and development of an American literary icon. Written seven years beforeThe Town and the Cityofficially launched his writing career,The Sea Is My Brothermarks the pivotal point at which Kerouac began laying the foundations for his pioneering method and signature style. The novel chronicles the misadventures of two seamen who at first seem different but are really two sides of the same coin: twentysevenyearold Wesley Martin, who loved the sea with a strange, lonely love, and William Everhart, an assistant professor of English at Columbia College who, at thirtytwo, impulsively ships out, hoping to escape society for the sea, but finds the sea a place of terrible loneliness. A clear precursor to such landmark novels asOn the Road,The Dharma Bums, andVisions 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 of intense conversation in bars and apartments, the desperate urge to escape from society, and the strange, terrible beauty of loneliness.

Reviews

Goodreads review by George on December 22, 2024

Mostly of interest to Kerouac superfans, this early novel was unpublished in Kerouac's lifetime. It is noticeably an early work, and the "rough draft" feeling lingers. The introduction is interesting, in that it includes journal excerpts from Kerouac's time in the merchant marine. Some of these sharp......more

Goodreads review by robin on October 29, 2022

An Early Kerouac Novel Jack Kerouac (1922 -- 1969) painstakingly wrote "The Sea is my Brother", his first novel, in longhand in 1943 at the age of 21. The book predates by seven years "The Town and the City" (1950), Kerouac's first published novel. The Town and the City Published at last in 2012, "Th......more

Goodreads review by John Paul on May 13, 2012

I remember Kerouac biographer Ann Charter arguing in the documentary King of the Beats that Kerouac could write in any form and style and that in her extensive study of the man and his work she could see the struggle for a more unique and distinct style. In the Sea is My Brother and also in Atop an......more

Goodreads review by Natalie on December 11, 2011

That book is a sensitively build, respectful and loving homage to this mans development into the Icon he later became. It is an early work, so don't be disappointed by his writing. It's not "on the road" yet, but if you look at it as a promise to what was later to come, you will love it! I find him......more

Goodreads review by Mat on January 23, 2016

The Sea is My Brother is amongst the earliest novels ever penned by Jack Kerouac. It is a very strong novel written by a young man with much promise but this edition is filled, in my humble opinion, with too much 'filler' material. The novel itself only comprises about 40% of the actual book size. Ab......more