The Town and the City: A Novel by Jack Kerouac is Kerouac's first novel and writing in a semi-autobiographical form. Kerouac needs no introduction to most readers. Everyone has read On the Road or at least, said they have read it. I found Kerouac difficult at first and the writing did not seem to flow right. A friend suggested I read it like the beat performers spoke and suddenly On the Road was very readable. The Town and the City: A Novel needs no special reading and is an excellent place to start for a reader wanting to pick up Kerouac. It flows well and tells the story Peter Martin a local boy who was unsure of himself until a day at football practice changes him. Peter (Jack Kerouac) is compared and contrasted with his brothers. Joe is the easy going trucking driving, beer drinking older brother who makes no more of his life than what it is and is content with it. Francis the wine drinking intellectual who longs for bigger and better things who finds himself in "his own cocoon of tormented adolescence." He does, however, have one of the most emotional encounters in the book.

Kerouac in his earlier days loved to compare and contrast. In The Town and the City it is not only the brothers that are examined but the town of Galloway, Massachusetts and New York City. Also compared are the character in both Galloway and New York. In New York Kerouac, as always, remembers his friends. Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs are present with a host of renamed beat friends. War and bankruptcy help drive the story.

Kerouac's earlier work is much different from his more well-known later works. The writing is much more standard in format and the storytelling is more traditional than his later works. In a previously unreleased book, The Sea is my Brother (1940) many of the same writing mannerisms can be found. In The Sea is my Brother two brothers are compared and outgoing one and a safe one. They make a composite of Kerouac. In The Town and the City we can also see this in Peter who like Kerouac was a football play and merchant marine. In Joe, we see a bit of the Dharma Bum and traveler. In Francis, we see the wine drinking cynic. There may even be a bit of Ginsberg in Francis who voluntarily commits himself to avoid an unpleasant alternative. Kerouac, even in his early fiction, writes about what he knows and lives. He lived an interesting life with interesting friends and what was not interesting could be changed by writing. The Town and the City provides not only a great story but insight into the so to be famous writer and Beat generation icon. ( )

“In the strong autumnal winds he rushed along ignoring the new dark knowledge he now half-understood - that to triumph was also to wreak havoc.”

Big Kerouac fan here! And I've finally read his first! I enjoyed it and felt like it was a big epic, one that took me a while to consume. It's all about the Martin family, pre and post WWII, and seemingly all over the world.

The football scenes with Peter are wonderfully described! As are the real feelings of people regarding WWII. I also enjoyed the fishing scene with the three brothers near the end. I didn't enjoy much of the discussions and arguments. They were so abstract and random feeling. And the same goes for some of the characters' feelings. They often felt whinny and disconnected to actual, real problems. I know things were really changing then, especially with the war, but so much of the issues seemed self-absorbed and trivial.

Still, I really enjoyed this book. It felt like a very real taste of America at that time. And it seemed to me that Kerouac, even though most say he is the Peter character, is actually three of the brothers - Peter, Joe, and Francis. Just my opinion, but I saw a lot of him in all of them. And I feel like it ends with a nice dovetail into "On the Road", though the books themselves are so different.
Good last line:
"He put up the collar of his jacket, and bowed his head, and hurried along." ( )

This was an amazing first book on Kerouac that delves into his life and, ultimately, begins his entry into the literary world (and his own world) as the foundation of being a writer. I was amazed by his use of language and the way that he seamlessly blended fiction into non-fiction and then back again. Kerouac's style, here, is fleeting and poetic, lucid and far-reaching. I've read On the Road, but I never thought this one would be so impressive as well.

4 stars- rightfully earned. ( )

While not Kerouac's strongest novel it is certainly important and a compelling story. I am glad I read it and I think it is worth a detour. Obviously it pales next to his ON THE ROAD. ( )

I was not actually aware that this novel's characters were based on real life figures of the Beat generation until AFTER reading it. That kind of put a different light on it to me. While reading it unaware of the real idenitity of the characters, I was more impressed with his characterization of the difference's between the town and country, the effects of WW2 on everyone and the apparent poverty alongside great wealth in New York. Many of the characters in NY like Leon Levinsky and Will Dennison did not seem to be anything like cult figures, writers or from the "Beat" generation (ie in actuality Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs), but merely wayward eccentric figures but not terribly outstanding in any way except that they were disgruntled with the way things were, and atypical of the generation gap. However, considering it was published in around ?1950 - the novel seemed suprisingly modern to me in 2010. The generation gap between youth and society could in fact have been any era up to now.
I also liked his take on how the war effected everyone at the time. The after effects not often talked about. and the crazy "atomic disease theory".


Kerouac says " "Because of the objections of my early publishers I was not allowed to use the same personae names in each work." [2:]

Spoilers~ for those who don't know.....

Real-life person Character name
Jack Kerouac = Peter Martin
Leo Kerouac = George Martin
Caroline Kerouac = Ruth and Elizabeth Martin
Gabrielle Kerouac = Marguerite Courbet Martin
Gerard Kerouac = Julian Martin
George "G.J." Apostolos = Danny "D.J." Mulverhill
Henry "Scotty" Beaulieu = Scotcho Rouleau
William S. Burroughs = Will Dennison
Joan Vollmer = Mary Dennison
Mary Carney = Mary Gilhooley
Lucien Carr = Kenneth Wood
Billy Chandler = Tommy Campbell
Allen Ginsberg = Leon Levinsky
Herbert Huncke = Junky
David Kammerer = Waldo Meister
Edie Parker = Judie Smith
Sebastian "Sammy" Sampas = Alex Panos ( )