No one deserves to have their earliest work published without a chance to edit out the excesses of youth and inexperience. On the other hand Orpheus Emerged should give everyone hope that even the most famous writers have shakey work.

Fans of Kerouac that have delved deeper than just a cursory reading of On the Road already know that Kerouac's earlier style is influenced more by classical romantics like Thomas Wolfe. His first published novel, The Town and the City, was hugely indebted to the southern writer’s sprawling portraits of southern life-though set in New England, and with scattered nods to Kerouac's own family.

Orpheus Emerged actually feels a bit more like what Kerouac would become. It’s full of students at Columbia having deeply earnest conversations over loud music and one too many cocktails. That said, I wish that every introduction didn't try to pair each of the characters with their real-life counterparts. It not only muddies the biographies of the other Beats, but it diminishes the books as literature. Kerouac wasn’t a journalist, and I fear some people read these as diaries.

Not only does it give you the idea that Kerouac’s novels are a window into the Beat’s world, which misses how much gloss he puts on this flawed group of poets, junkies, and speed freaks. Not to mention, Kerouac-like most writers of the time–leaves the women in the scene as combinations of arm candy and plot device.

As I got older, my romance for the myth of Kerouac has faded. Not to mention that I’d more likely go back and read Book of Blues or Scattered Poems over On The Road or Dharma Bums. Those novels still have his excellent sense of rhythm and rip off the page, Orpheus Emerged is missing that. Well, there’s a party scene that finishes out the first section of the book where you spot moments of it in the frantic conversations over wine and classical music.

One of the better sections of On the Road is Kerouac describing be-bop. His crew was not hip enough at this time to descend into Harlem and get into Jazz. Instead, they’re exchanging recording of classical music and extolling the modernist composers. While Kerouac is undoubtedly into the music, it doesn’t translate into prose in the quite same way.

This slim novel is a curiosity that should be on your list if you’re deep into Kerouac’s catalog. It’s encouraging to see that even legendary writers begin cliched and scattershot. You also get to see the skeletal form of the fictionalized memoir that defined On The Road.