The Sea is My Brother is the lost novel by Jack Kerouac. It has just been published 70 years after it was written. Kerouac wrote this novel when he was only 21, seven years before his first novel The Town and the City was published. In true Kerouac style we have been given a glimpse into the writer that he would be become. Themes that he wrote about his whole life are present here in this early work.
Kerouac's struggle to unite the two sides of his personality are here personified by Martin and Everhart. Martin is the free spirit, with no attachments, no commitments, reckless, ready to take life as it comes and live fully in the moment. Everhart is the scholar, settled, living at home, teaching literature, less adventurous, more tied down and worried about the future. They both enlist in the Merchant Marines and set out on a great adventure.
If you are already a Kerouac fan, this is a wonderful addition to his body of work. If you are new to Kerouac, this is a good introduction to his writing, and you can go from here to his more famous works like Dharma Bums and On the Road.
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