VISIONS OF GERARD

by Jack Kerouac, Penguin/Random House.

This claims my “Most Meaningful Spending of 20 Cents” award. I bought it from an op shop in Lyttelton in the summer of 2014 and read it over a couple of days, cried some pubescent tears, then read it again. It focuses on the tragically short life of Kerouac’s older brother Gerard, who died at the age of nine. The younger Jack views him as a true saint, and relays to us the tenderly naive perspective of a boy who holds no blame for the world that gave him such a short time to explore. It’s a quick read (now available in a trilogy of the author’s work), and it won’t leave you angry with the world.