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Visions of Gerard Audiobook
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The first book in Kerouac’s Duluoz Legend, a novella detailing the writer’s early life as refracted through the prism of the untimely loss of his brother
Unique among Jack Kerouac’s novels, Visions of Gerard captures the scenes and sensations of earliest childhood, the first four years in the life of Ti Jean Duluoz as they unfold in the short, tragic-happy life of his brother, Gerard. Set in Kerouac’s hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, childhood’s intensity, innocence, suffering, and delight unfold as Gerard interacts with animals, has visions of Our Lady in heaven, astonishes the priest in the church confessional, and observes his family as they laugh and drink and weep—that is, when he isn’t sick and confined to bed.
A novel that Kerouac called “my best most serious sad and true book yet,” Visions of Gerard is a beautiful, unsettling, and melancholic exploration of the meaning and precariousness of existence.
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“Kerouac’s heartfelt ode to his brother, who died young, and to his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, always fires me up anew about the power of language, and reminds me that the highest aim of writing is to jolt us (albeit temporarily) into a more awake and uncertain state of mind.”
— George Saunders, #1 New York Times bestselling author
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“[A] pleasant and underrated surprise…[Visions of Gerard] has a winning simplicity and sweetness.”
— Washington Post -
“Childhood death and family sorrow—the earliest and most heartfelt chapter of Kerouac’s fictionalized autobiography.”
— Ann Charters, professor emerita of American literature at the University of Connecticut at Storrs
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About Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) was an American novelist and poet who influenced generations of writers. He is recognized for his style of spontaneous prose and for being a pioneer of the Beat Generation. His first novel appeared in 1950, but it was On the Road, published in 1957, that epitomized to the world what became known as the “Beat generation” and made Kerouac one of the best-known writers of his time. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, he attended local Catholic schools and then won a scholarship to Columbia University, where he first met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, other originators of the Beat movement.
About Andrew Eiden
Andrew Eiden, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is an actor and voice artist. He has been acting since the age of four, working at regional theaters including La Mirada Theatre, the Glendale Center Theatre, and the Pasadena Playhouse. He has starred in dozens of national commercials, guest-spotted on numerous television shows, and has been a series regular on three programs: Discovery Channel’s Outward Bound, Disney Channel’s Movie Surfers, and most notably ABC’s Complete Savages