I was excited to read recently that Jack Kerouac’s unpublished first novel The Sea is my Brother is to be published next year. I thought Peter Townshend wrote an excellent piece about the event and its possible implications.
One note of caution, though: I wonder why The Sea is my Brother has not been published before now. The stories I’ve read about it refer to it as Kerouac’s “lost” manuscript, but don’t explain where it was lost and how it was found. I’d love to discover a new Kerouac masterpiece, but I’d hate to have the disappointment of reading a first novel that had been kept under lock and key for 60 years for the simple reason that it didn’t measure up to his later work.
I guess I’ll have to read it and find out. Exciting news, anyway.
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I too am very excited about this book being published. I don’t think it has been so much lost as tightly held onto. John Sampas, who is now the last Sampas to be in charge of Jack’s literary estate has been really careful in what he releases for publication…and when. Kerouac was incredibly compulsive about keeping his works organized and in tact, creating his own bibliography with the author, Charters, using his own carefully and categorically filed written articles, stories and novels. Apparently it only took a few days as he was so organized, thus leaving a fantastic stock of literary history after he left us.