The Haunted Life - The Lost Novella

Set in the tranquil New England town of Galloway, a fictionalized version of Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachussets, the Haunted Life is a coming of age story of Peter Martin, a college track star determined to idle away one last summer. Instead, he finds himself haunted by what awaits him: a  community still enduring the blight of the great depression in the US's iminent entry to the second world war. When his two best friends -characters based on Kerouac's best friends, both recently killed in combat - begin to plot their escapes from Galloway, he realizes he will soon have to make a choice about his own future. As he surveys the competing influences of his youth, from his working class populist father, to his restless idealist friends, Peter struggles to determine what might lead to an intellectually authentic life.