Sea Is My Brother - by Jack Kerouac (Paperback)

About the Book

The first major work by Kerouac--never before published in its entirety--now with related early writing and correspondence.

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

Wall Street Journal, 3/20/12
"[The Sea Is My Brother] offers plenty of disarming insights into who Kerouac was as a person and writer before he slipped behind the mask of Beat Generation Zen-master...The book is enjoyable"

Litreactor.com, 3/20/12
"The Sea is My Brother is a fascinating read, both in its own right and as part of Kerouac's canon."

New York Post, 3/18/12
"There are plenty of hints of the Kerouac to come."

Blurt-Online, 3/12/12
"[The Sea is My Brother] is perhaps the best of the posthumous releases....Could be considered the skeleton that would become gems."

Huffington Post, 3/23/12

"Fans of the On the Road author will be fascinated by the glimpse into Kerouac's early writing mind."

January Magazine, 3/22/12
"For his admirers and students of his style, the book is a worthwhile read."

National Post (Canada), 3/25/12

"A foreshadowing of Kerouac at his best, a kind of sweet, unassuming persona that made his writing very engaging."


Chicago Reader, 4/13
"I loved Kerouac's first novel, The Sea Is My Brother...[It] left me with that feeling that life is full of poems, pain, colorful characters, and small moments that matter."

Milwaukee Shepherd Express, 4/12/12
"The Sea is My Brother is chock-full of pathos, anticipation and hurt. Kerouac's characters, including the small role players, are a perfect blend of real people living real lives. It was a brilliant, youthful performance by the author, years before he changed the pace of literature with On the Road."

Chicago New City, 4/16/12

"A captivating preview into the author--and his works--to be...A complete story, romantic, energetic, exuberant and even brash, qualities Kerouac never outgrew."

Charleston Post & Courier, 5/27/12
"The fascination, and perhaps the value of this book, is that it presents itself as a clear precursor to the books that followed. Given Kerouac's subsequent impact, it is an important artifact in the popular literature of the time."

Kirkus Reviews, 2/1/12

"A Jack London-esque yarn."

Publishers Weekly, 1/30/12

"While it may not be the Rosetta Stone of the beat movement, the publication of this flawed manuscript will be an event for [Kerouac's] admirers."

Booklist, 3/1/12

"Read this first effort to watch Kerouac learning the ropes."

Entertainment Weekly, 3/2/12
"You'll see hints of the bebop prose that would later pour out of Kerouac's typewriter so effortlessly."

Cleveland Plain Dealer, 3/11/12
"Rarely does talking seem as much like action as it does in The Sea Is My Brother. The characters' words fire the imagination. If they don't move you, to quote Louis Jordan, 'Jack, you dead'...There is a song inside The Sea Is My Brother, a song for anyone who has ever looked over the horizon and thought, 'I'm gonna get out of here someday.'"

Tampa Bay Times, 3/11/12

"For a glimpse of Kerouac crossing the boundary from boy to man, fans can now turn to his first novel."

About the Author

Jack Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. The best-known of his many works, On the Road, published in 1957, was an international bestseller. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the age of forty-seven.