The Sea Is My Brother

In 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. Nearly seventy years later, its 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 career, this novel 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 and The Dharma Bums, 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, the desperate urge to escape from society, and the strange, terrible beauty of loneliness.