"Kerouac's heartfelt ode to his brother, who died young, and to his hometown of Lowell, Mass., 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,
The Week "Childhood death and family sorrow - the earliest and most heartfelt chapter of Kerouac's fictionalized autobiography." –Ann Charters
"[T]he heart of Kerouac's mature fiction . . . [contains] depths that seem fresh, even revelatory." –
The Washington Post