The Sea Is My Brother

A reserved academic joins a salt-of-the-earth sailor for a tour of duty with the Merchant Marines in this early lost novel by the author of On the Road.

“[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.” —Wall Street Journal

In the spring of 1943, not long after his first tour as a 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 and described it as a novel about “man’s simple revolt from society as it is, with the inequalities, frustration, and self-inflicted agonies.” 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 at 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 Big Sur, 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.

“The Sea is My Brother is a fascinating read, both in its own right and as part of Kerouac’s canon.” —Litreactor.com