The haunted life
Subtitle: and other writings
By: Jack Kerouac ; edited by Todd Tietchen
Contributors: Tietchen, Todd, editor
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: 2014
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 192
ISBN-13: 9780141394084
Subjects: Fiction
Work titles: Works
Description: In 1944, twenty-two year old Jack Kerouac lost a novella-length manuscript called The Haunted Life. It turned up thirteen years later in a Columbia University dormitory, and then in 2002, at a Sotheby's auction house. Now, 70 years after Kerouac wrote it, his second novel will be published for the first time. The Haunted Life is the coming-of-age story of Peter Martin, a college track star determined to idle away what he knows will be one of his last innocent summers in his tranquil New England home town. But with the war escalating in Europe and his two closest friends both plotting their escapes, he realises how sheltered his upbringing has been. As he surveys the competing influences of his youth, he struggles to determine what might lead to an intellectually authentic life. The Haunted Life is ultimately a meditation on intellectual truth, male friendship and the desire for movement all themes that would dominate Kerouac's later work.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (page 23).