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Sign up todayAtop an Underwood
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Learn moreBefore Jack Kerouac expressed the spirit of a generation in his 1957 classic On the Road, he spent years figuring out how he wanted to live and, above all, learning how to write.
Atop an Underwood brings together more than sixty previously unpublished works that Kerouac wrote before he was twenty-two, ranging from stories and poems to plays and parts of novels, including an excerpt from his 1943 merchant marine novel, The Sea Is My Brother. These writings reveal what Kerouac was thinking, doing, and dreaming during his formative years and reflect his primary literary influences. Listeners will also find in these works the source of Kerouac’s spontaneous prose style.
Uncovering a fascinating missing link in Kerouac’s development as a writer, Atop an Underwood is essential listening for Kerouac fans, scholars, and critics.
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) was an American novelist and poet who influenced generations of writers. He is recognized for his spontaneous prose style and for being a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Andrew Eiden is an actor and winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award for narration. He has been acting since the age of four, working at regional theaters, in national commercials, and on numerous television shows.
Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.
Reviews
“This is a Jack Kerouac developing his skills, awaiting his muse.”
“Offers a wonderful glimpse into the author’s formative years.”
“It’s good to dip into the early writings and see the confident, hopeful Jack Kerouac who was the source of his own dreams.”
“Kerouac’s intense desire to be a writer hit him early and stayed with him his entire life. This passion colors all of his early stuff…And his themes are all here: America, travel, jazz, the delicate presence of death…The passion Kerouac brought to all of his writing is here.”
“Atop an Underwood is indispensable for the reader who wants to chart the development of one of our talented writers.”
“Provide[s] a tantalizing glimpse of the future Beat generation originator, spanning Kerouac’s adolescence and his first years in New York.”
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