Summary

'Into this book, The Sea is My Brother, I shall weave all the passion and glory of living, its restlessness and peace, its fever and ennui, its mornings, noons and nights of desire, frustration, fear, triumph, and death .

'Into this book, The Sea is My Brother, I shall weave all the passion and glory of living, its restlessness and peace, its fever and ennui, its mornings, noons and nights of desire, frustration, fear, triumph, and death . . . ' Before he became famous with On the Road, Jack Kerouac was a sailor. This, his first novel, was inspired by his love affair with the sea. It follows the fortunes of Wesley Martin, a taciturn loner who 'loved the sea with a strange, lonely love', and Bill Everhart, a firebrand intellectual who longs for elemental freedoms and the simple life. After a last-minute decision to work their passage on a ship, they find themselves on the S.S. Westminsterin Boston. Bound for Greenland, they argue, drink Scotch, play cards, dodge torpedoes, contemplate the vast isolation of their surroundings, and wonder if they will reach their destination. Kerouac weaves their story into an intense portrait of friendship and brotherhood; an existential meditation on the desire to escape society, and, above all, the rugged, untameable power of the sea. Kerouac began this novel shortly after his first tour as a Merchant Marine in late summer 1942, where he kept a journal detailing the gritty daily routine of life at sea and the character traits of his fellow shipmates. Shortly after his return to shore, he wove these spontaneous observations into a 158-page handwritten manuscript, which was lost during his lifetime. Now published in its entirety, along with fragments of early stories and letters, and commentary illuminating his development as a writer, The Sea is My Brothergives us a unique insight into the young Kerouac and the formation of his genius.