A review by jim96
The Haunted Life: and Other Writings by Jack Kerouac

2.0

Given this is his first attempt at a novel, Kerouac's prose is unsurprisingly immature and uninspiring. He clearly has a lot of great ideas, but tends to tell us them all through over-written monologues rather than showing them to us via the actions of his characters - as he would so aptly come to master in his later novels. The writing does pick up in the final third, particularly with the introduction of Dick who is pleasantly reminiscent of Dean Moriarty, and it is around this point that Kerouac starts dwelling on more substantial themes like the transition from adolescence to adulthood and the uncertainties that accompany one's staring down the barrel of the gun (both metaphorically and literally, in this instance).