This book tells the story of Gerard, Jack Kerouac\u2019s older brother, who died of rheumatic fever at the age of nine, when Kerouac himself was only four. Through childhood memories, he portrays Gerard as an almost saintly figure \u2014 gentle, forgiving, deeply connected to nature and to God. He also paints a vivid picture of his parents and family life during those difficult years.\u00a0The story of this little boy\u2019s illness and death is deeply moving, but the book is also heavily infused with religious reflections, which occupy a large part of the narrative and shape the family\u2019s daily life. As someone unfamiliar with Kerouac\u2019s writing, I sometimes found the reading a little dense and demanding, despite the emotional strength of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI brought him on earth, in my womb, the Virgin Mary help me!\u2014in my womb, with pain\u2014I gave him his milk!\u2014I took care of him\u2014I stood at his bedside\u2014I bought him presents on Christmas, I made him little costumes Halloween\u2014I\u2019d make his nice oatmeal he loves so much in the mornings!\u2014I\u2019d listen to his little stories, I examined his little pictures he drew\u2014I did everything in my power to make his little life contented\u2014inside me, outside me, and returned to the earth!\u201c wails my mother realizing the utter hopeless loss of life and death, the completely defeated conditionality and partiality of it, the pure mess it entails, yet people go on hoping and hoping\u2014\u201cI did everything,\u201d she sobs with handkerchief to face, in the bedroom, as the\u00a0Bradleys, Aunt Pauline, her sister, come in, from New Hampshire, \u201cand it\u00a0didnt\u00a0work\u2014he died any how\u2014They took him off to Heaven!\u2014They\u00a0didnt\u00a0leave him with me!\u2014Gerard, my little Gerard!\u201d<\/em> This book tells the story of Gerard, Jack Kerouac\u2019s older brother, who died of rheumatic fever at the age of nine, when Kerouac himself was only four. Through childhood memories, he portrays Gerard as an almost saintly figure \u2014 gentle, forgiving, deeply connected to nature and to God. He also paints a vivid picture of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[291,293],"tags":[42,82,167],"class_list":["post-21693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-2026","category-challenge-riquiqui-2026","tag-childhood","tag-grief","tag-siblings"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/benoit-gauzere-AZ48BffFJz0-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1706&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21721,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21693\/revisions\/21721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cCalm yourself, poor Ange, you\u2019ve suffered so.\u201d \u201cI\u00a0haventsuffered like he did, that\u2019s what breaks my heart!\u201d and she yells that and they all know she really means it, she\u2019s had her fill of the injustice of it, a little lame boy dying without hope\u2014\u201cIt\u2019s that that\u2019s tearing my heart out and breaking my head in two!\u201d<\/em>
\u201cAnge, Ange, poor sensitive heart!\u201d weeps gentle Aunt Marie at her shoulder.<\/em>
Nin and I are sobbing horribly in bed side by side to hear these pitiful wracks of clack talk coming from our own human mother, the softness of her arms all gashed now in the steely proposition Death\u2014\u201cI\u2019ll never be able to wipe that from my memory!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"