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The Town and the City (Penguin Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Jack Kerouac (Author), Douglas Brinkley (Introduction)
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 512 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (3 Feb 2000)
  • Language Unknown
  • ISBN-10: 0141182237
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141182230
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 55,389 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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More About the Author

Jack Kerouac
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Product Description

Product Description

'It is the sum of myself, as far as the written word can go' Kerouac on THE TOWN AND THE CITY Kerouac's debut novel is a great coming of age story which can be read as the essential prelude to his later classics. Inspired by grief over his father's death and gripped by determination to write the Great American Novel, he draws largely on his own New England childhood.

About the Author

The author of a number of a hugely influential and popular novels - including ON THE ROAD and DHARMA BUMS - Jack Kerouac is remembered as one of the key figures of the legendary Beat generation.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Town And The City tracks the lives of the Martin family (5 sons and 3 daughters) growing up, living loving and discovering themselves, the world and others in the small town of Galloway in Massachusetts in the early 1900's. From the football star, to the lonely scholar, to the forever wandering heartbreaker of a truck driver, Kerouac deals with each of the siblings separately, describing their very different lives and in doing so, gives us the readers, a glimpse into each of their souls.

The book can be read as a largely autobiographical account of Kerouac's life, with each of the Martin sons representing alternative parts of himself, his feelings, thoughts and personality. Alternatively, the reader can lose themselves in the lives of the Martin family without concerning themselves with the real or the elaborated.

Kerouac reaches the reader with soaring, descriptive writing, which transform the mundane and everyday into feelings and emotions which describe the things you've always thought and felt but could never articulate into words...

"He was sick now with a crying lonesomeness, he somehow knew that all moments were farewell, all life was goodbye."

Kerouac himself describes the book as, "The sum of myself as far as the written word can go." The great American novel? Possibly, but this book is definately an essential for all Kerouac fans, people who have ever wondered what somebody else was thinking and all those who have raged on into the lonely night looking for an 'angelheaded hipster' to give them meaning.

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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Kerouac's Best 17 Mar 2000
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Oddly enough, and against poplular criticism, I feel that by far this is Kerouac's best book. Rather than the 'travelogues' of his later work (which I don't mean to denigrate--they are spectacular), this is a thought out, true 'novel'. I've felt ever since I read it years ago that if he would have continued in this vein he'd be right up there with Hemingway et al, instead of a genre writer. Not that he was a mere 'genre writer' mind you. Without giving away any plot, the scene with his father at the end is the only thing I have ever in my life read that moved me to tears. There are hints of his later style as the book moves on, but the pure emotion, the feeling...he never equaled this book, and I think that affected the rest of his work. A true masterpiece; a couple of more like this and he'd have won a Nobel Prize. Just an amazing book.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Before Beat 18 Aug 2004
By Craig
Format:Paperback
Before there ever was the Beat generation there was Jack trying to write. This is a book which proves to those who claim that Kerouac couldn't write properly that he was a capable writer. His prose is excellent and the characterisations lack the weirdness of his later novels.

The novel is based on small town America, and chronicles the life of what to Jack would have been an average American family, in the years upto and during the second world war. It is also full of personal observations of Jack's life, for those who want to know more about the writer. To us in the UK it is more like a history lesson, and a chance to glimpse what living in America used to be like before McDonalds strode across the world.

If you like stories that deal with relationships of you will like it, I promise you.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A cracking debut!
Kerouac, the man and the author, is often accused of many things by detractors, ranging from a poor/sloppy writing style, to emotional immaturity, not being a 'proper' authority on... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Sebastian Palmer
Atmospheric and rewarding reading.
Despite reading this many years ago, this novel has stood out in my mind as one of Kerouac's best. It's almost certainly his most underated as the author himself later disowned the... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Paul Harris
an excellent book
having read 'on the road' and 'dharma bums' many times i've decided it's time to buy some of the less well known kerouac books second hand through the market place. Read more
Published on 1 May 2010 by ken mayle
Kerouac at his best
Jack kerouac would have made a great film director if he ever had the inclination. The first half dozen pages of the book read like a tracking shot at the beginning of a movie -... Read more
Published on 24 April 2009 by Jeremy Persaud
Masterpiece
I first read On the Road while a student in 1982 and liked it immensely. I ignored The Town and the City assuming that it would be a crummy Pre-Beat first novel by Kerouac. Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2008 by Thomas N. Orchard
Five stars for what it is
Ah Jack, young Jack. If only you'd held to the innocence of Town and ignored the City... but that wasn't possible, was it Jack? Read more
Published on 15 Mar 2000
Absolutely Jack

This book is a poingnant tale of the trials of life, as seen through the eyes of a boy, who watches his family changing and aging, even as he does the same. Read more

Published on 7 Nov 1997
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