The Town and the City

"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.
Kerouac draws on his New England mill-town boyhood to create the world of George and Marguerite Martin and their eight children, each endowed with an energy and a vision of life. The Town and the City is vividly drawn with poetic prose, lacking the stream-of-consciousness style of his later works. Fans of Kerouac as well as Steinbeck, will be enthralled by this dramatic family saga capped by a final scene that poignantly sets up On the Road.