The Haunted Life: And Other Writings, by Jack Kerouac
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The Haunted Life: And Other Writings, by Jack Kerouac
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Jack Kerouac wrote The Haunted Life in 1944 when he was 22 years old and attending Columbia University. Originally intended as a three-part novel, only this first 20,000-word section was ever finished. Upon its completion, Kerouac promptly lost his only hand-written final draft in a New York taxi cab, remaining unknown to the public until its appearance at Christies about ten years ago.
Kerouac’s family has now decided to share this manuscript with the world.
While the entirety of the novel remained unfinished, the surviving manuscript successfully works alone as a novella with a satisfying, if open-ended, conclusion. It features a scaled-down version of the Martin family and is set in Lowell, Massachusetts, as was Kerouac’s first novel The Town and The City. Kerouac had planned on writing a cycle of novels tentatively titled An American Passed Here, which was to be set primarily in the fictional town of Galloway (based on Lowell). That cycle was to contain The Haunted Life and The Sea is My Brother, tracing the story of the Martin family throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Eventually Kerouac’s plans for his Martin cycle materialized into his first novel, The Town and the City, shortly before he moved on to compose his iconic On the Road.
Todd Tietchen, the editor of the project and the Jack Kerouac/Beat Scholar in residence at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, has assembled a number of archival documents to thicken out the context of this lost novella, documents that attest to the level of intention and care that went into Kerouac’s writing projects.
The Haunted Life: And Other Writings, by Jack Kerouac - Brand: Kerouac, Jack/ Tietchen, Todd (EDT)/ Schreiber, Liev (NRT)/ Daniels, Luke (NRT)
- Published on: 2015-10-06
- Formats: Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.75" h x .50" w x 5.25" l,
- Running time: 5 Hours
- Binding: MP3 CD
The Haunted Life: And Other Writings, by Jack Kerouac Review Praise for The Haunted Life12 Spring Books Not To Miss, Library Journal"Provides an exciting look into Kerouac's formative years"—Los Angeles Review of Books"A very satisfying introduction to Kerouac's attempts at finding his voice and vision as a writer"—Providence Sunday Journal
About the Author Jack Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. The best-known of his many works, On the Road, published in 1957, was an international bestseller. He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the age of forty-seven.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful. Kerouac Before the Jazz By Jym Cherry There are some great lost manuscripts in American literature and some are truly lost. Ernest Hemingway famously lost the only draft of the first short stories he ever wrote on a French train. Most writers have ‘lost’ manuscripts, conspicuously placed in quotes because those stories for whatever reason the writer has are socked away until after their deaths (interestingly Hemingway also falls into this category). Kerouac’s “The Haunted Life” falls into the category of the truly lost. He didn’t know where it had gotten off to, he thought he might have left it in the backseat of a NY taxi-cab, or maybe that was just a nod to Hemingway’s lost manuscript and Kerouac’s own self-mythologization. What happened was the manuscript of “The Haunted Life” was left in a Columbia College closet, perhaps Allen Ginsberg’s. Luckily, whomever found it held onto it, and has now made it’s way to publication.“The Haunted Life” as Kerouac had it planned was going to be a three part novel chronicling the effects of war on society. The individual sections were to be called ‘Home,’ ‘War,’ and ‘Changes.’ It is the ‘Home’ fragment that has survived. It is a “day in the life” of college student Peter Martin home for the summer, he visits friends, walks around the town, meets a girl he’s interested in, and meets his father at a bar. There is not much overt action, but a lot going on in Kerouac’s portrayal of the characters. Just as the last chapter of the first section is hitting a crescendo, and you’re ready to read what comes after that…it ends. Kerouac does display some virtuoso skill for a neophyte work. One section that stands out is the dramatization of the passage of time through life illustrated in the span of morning until noon. It is subtle and effective, and would make any mature writer proud to have written it.As editor Todd Tietchen notes in his introduction, Kerouac probably considered the ’Home’ section finished because there were no emendations, additions, revisions, or notes on the text. It can be reasoned the other two sections would juxtapose the idealistic reverie Peter Martin experiences in the ’Home’ section. It doesn’t seem Kerouac had the time to write the other two parts, but readers of Kerouac know that Peter Martin is the protagonist in Kerouac’s first published novel “The Town and the City.” After the fragment of “The Haunted Life,” Tietchen has included Kerouac’s notes on the story and readers can see “The Haunted Life” material subtly shift (if not exactly morph) into material for “The Town and the City.”Kerouac was surely the ultimate expression of Fitzgerald’s egotist. Kerouac’s impetus right from the start is to mythologize his life. Even at this early juncture is already developing the archetypes such as ‘the mad poet’ in “The Haunted Life” based on Sebastian Sampas and given the name Garabed Tourain a characterization Kerouac later work into Carlo Marx based on Allen Ginsberg. Also, the man of action in “Haunted“ is the character of Dick Sheffield based on real life friend Bill Chandler, which would find its final iteration in Dean Morarity based on Neal Cassady in “On The Road.”“The Haunted Life” was probably written as a requiem for childhood friends that had been killed in the war, especially Sebastian Sampas. Kerouac wrote the ‘Home‘ section days after learning of Sampas‘s death. Even though “The Haunted Life” may be a memoriam for those lost friends, Tietchen hypothesizes “The Haunted Life” and Kerouac’s later work may stand as a memorial for all those lost in the war, and whose loss substantially changed the world, but also the individual.Something must be said about the idealistic tone of “The Haunted Life” as well. Even though in the work notes that accompany “The Haunted Life” Kerouac says it will be a sad book, but Peter’s outlook and the tone of the piece are very idealistic and the characters share idealism in their world view. Peter and Garabed share a romantic world view that a revolution is coming for the better, while Peter and Dick want to explore the world knowing full well a war is coming, but see it as an adventure and not with the understanding of the consequences wars bring. This a fallacy in the thinking of young men from time immemorial. This idealism stands in counterpoint to Kerouac’s later tone in his mature works where a foggy gloom always seems to hang over everything even a book like “Dr. Sax,” which captures the carefree innocence and imagination of youth as it explores the world around it.The volume of “The Haunted Life” also includes writing notes Kerouac made for the his novel “The Town and The City” as well as some correspondence between Kerouac and his father Leo that is fairly revealing in Kerouac as a person and aspiring novelist. Leo Kerouac’s summation of the aftereffects of the war are quite amazing and perceptive in their analysis of the social changes coming after the war. How much of this Kerouac incorporated into his world view, it is certain his father’s bigotry later manifested itself in Kerouac in his later years, but how it affected the revolutionary artist in Kerouac is anybody’s guess.“The Haunted Life” is an insightful look at Kerouac as a developing artist that Kerouac fans and academicians can appreciate. Now, maybe someday someone will come forward with Hemingway’s lost short stories.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. A Great Book for Kerouac Fans By Lazarus The Haunted Life is an unfinished early work. It is the story of Peter, home for the summer after his first year at Boston College. He smokes cigarettes and a pipe in bedroom full of artifacts from his childhood. His father never talks unless he’s in a bar, otherwise he only shouts about an America long gone and far better, ruined by Roosevelt and immigrants. Peter’s aunt lives with them. She is the motherly voice of reason, cooks good meals, and calls the men away from the radio when it’s time for dinner.Peter feels that the freedom of his youth will soon give way to mortgages and responsibilities and a job that will snuff his dreams. He’s determined to enjoy his summer. The story describes his life that summer. For example, one evening his childhood friend Garabed knocks on the window of his room, luring him out after sunset to walk the neighborhood and discuss poetry, travel, and the limitless nature of mankind. At a café, Garabed eats four hamburgers. The sun comes up and Garabed goes home, but Peter walks into town alone with a plan. Intoxicated by exhaustion, he explores the stores and talks giddily to acquaintances. The simple small town is a wonder to him. At nine o’clock in the morning he goes into a bar, drinks shots of liquor and glasses of beer. While drinking his sixth beer, his father happens to come in, slaps him on the back, and sits next to him at the bar. They talk about horse races. His father drinks a few beers then walks to his job selling insurance. The last of Peter’s energy is spent. He takes the bus home and dreams in a drowse.For admirers of Kerouac’s work, The Haunted Life is an interesting exhibit of the writer’s talents before they were in full bloom. It lacks the dynamism and edge of his later work. The characters are mere props for Peter, and Peter himself is a mere prop for his own impressions. But the Kerouac nature is there. The introspection, the vivd vignettes of suburban life, the close friendships and frank conversations, the long unpredictable illustrative lists—all of these are present and bear the print of the mind of one of America’s most gifted writers.After the end of The Haunted Life the book contains Kerouac’s notes about the story. These notes were written in a sober, logical, analytical style without flourish. They show that Kerouac was extremely intelligent. He had a vast vision for The Haunted Life and planned to make it into a novel. His vision was coherent and profound. It is easy to assume from what is commonly said about Kerouac’s writing style—e.g., calling it “stream of conscious,” noting the fact that he wrote On the Road on a single teletype roll, etc.—that Kerouac’s words and stories just poured out of his head without effort. However, his notes for The Haunted Life show that he thought deeply about what he wrote, and that his writing was the product of the work of clear and disciplined thinking, not of magic.Also in the book are letters that Kerouac’s father Leo wrote to him and his sister, and even some of Leo’s fictional writing. Kerouac and his father were close. Kerouac called him the only honest man he’d ever met. It is evident from Leo’s letters that his son inherited from him his big heart, capacious mind, and indefatigable curiosity about life’s most profound questions. In sum, for those who like reading Jack Kerouac, this book offers much.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Hauntingly Beautiful By Paul C Nason Amazing writing for Kerouac's very early writing stage.If written today, nothing would change, in the content.Jack was an amazing writer.
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