'Lost' Kerouac novel to be published

Publishers Marketplace reports that Harpers has agreed to publish "The Sea is My Brother," a "lost" novel by Jack Kerouac, written in 1942 and based on his experiences in the Merchant Marine. According to the book "Desolate Angel" by Dennis McNally, Kerouac wrote the work while on the Dorchester, where he served in the galley.

A review in Jack Magazine of "Atop an Underwood," the 1999 compendium of Kerouac's early and unpublished writings says that "Underwood" contains "a substantial chunk of the third version of 'The Sea is My Brother'." The biography "Jack Kerouac" by Michael Dittman quotes Kerouac as describing "The Sea is My Brother" as being about "man's simple revolt from society as it is, with the inequalities, frustration, and self-inflicted agonies. Weley Martin loved the sea with a strange, lonely love; the sea is his brother and sentences. He goes down. The story also of another man, in contrast, who escapes society for the sea, but finds the sea a place of terrible loneliness."

Sounds like Kerouac was pretty horny and miserable aboard the Dorchester.

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