Unspeakable Visions, 20 pages, chapbook, OOP

Visitor: Jack Kerouac In Old Saybrook is a very short chapbook, but a great, quick read. It consists of four journal entries written by  John Clellon Holmes, presented (for the most part) entirely unedited, with little contextual paragraph written between each.

The first three entries from 1957, ’62, and ’65 detail visits Jack Kerouac made to the Holmeses’ house in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and the final, written on October 21, 1969, reflects Holmes’s immediate thoughts upon hearing about Kerouac’s death.

All in all this is an interesting, sensitive take on the brotherly relationship between two very different people who, regardless of their deep differences and frequent clashes, loved and influenced one another very much throughout their adult lives.

This quote, from the final page, sums it up:

“Well, if love is total involvement, deep emotional clairvoyance about the other’s soul, fury & hunger all intermixed, he was the only man I’ve ever loved. He changed my life irrevocably.” (p. 20)