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THE SEA IS MY BROTHER

Name: THE SEA IS MY BROTHER
Author: Jack Kerouac
ISBN: 978-0-306-82125-7

THE LOST NOVEL

by Jack Kerouac ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2012

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A forgotten novel—forgotten, by its author, for a reason—by Beat Generation icon Kerouac.

Years before taking to the highway, Kerouac tried his hand at a Jack London–esque yarn. He had all the material he needed out on the open ocean, where he served a short hitch in the Merchant Marine during a dangerous time of prowling wolf packs of Nazi submarines—and it’s a sobering thought to realize that Kerouac first tried his hand at a novel fully 70 years ago, back on dry land. The result is a work that, well, reads in many ways as if written 70 years ago (“It was there he’d met that cute little colored girl who belonged to the Young Communists League”). The story concerns a young man, “just above average height, thin, with a hollow countenance notable for its prominence of chin and upper lip muscles, and expressive mouth…and a pair of level, sympathetic eyes”—a young man, that is, very much like the 20-year-old Kerouac—who finds himself on shore leave in New York, and there gets himself in all sorts of whiskey-soaked mischief. Though Kerouac myth has it that he sprang fully formed, like Athena, from America’s brow with On the Road, this antedates his masterwork by a full decade, and it shows every sign of being a first book (as when, early on, Kerouac has difficulty deciding whether the narrative is to be in the past or the present tense, mixing both). But the centerpiece of the story is a friendship, sometimes bordering on homoerotic, between two young men in a time of war and social stress, which, of course, would remain Kerouac’s grand theme for many books to follow. Not much happens in the book, which, for all its awkwardness, has promising moments. However, readers expecting the exuberance and poetry of the later Kerouac will come away unsatisfied. Of interest primarily to scholars and diehard Kerouackers; general readers ought to head to the far more memorable On the Road, The Subterraneans and The Dharma Bums.

Pub Date: March 6, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-306-82125-7

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Da Capo

Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
JACK KEROUAC'S <I>ON THE ROAD<I>
by Jack Kerouac

- BOOK REVIEW
AND THE HIPPOS WERE BOILED IN THEIR TANKS
by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac

- BOOK REVIEW
WAKE UP
by Jack Kerouac

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.