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Back to Steinbeck's California Page Video Video Link: Visit
the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas!
Reviews
Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter which states how closely Steinbeck’s works are related to some specific places in California. Mile-long rows of green lettuce in Salinas Valley and flowers like California poppies and lupines, all of which are so familiar in East of Eden and The Red Pony, are presented visually with accompanying quotations from each novel. Chapter 2 is devoted to Steinbeck’s birthplace, Salinas. It provides the reader with Steinbeck’s brief personal history with such photos as Steinbeck’s House, the Steinbeck Library, and the National Steinbeck Center, as well as a rare picture of Olive in an airplane. It also includes an illustrated map of Salinas, which is very helpful and useful in reading East of Eden. Chapter 3 focuses on the agricultural aspects of Salinas and the neighboring areas. Starting with the agricultural history of Salinas, it tells of the migrant farmers and field workers we come across in Of Mice and Men and In Dubious Battle. Chapter 4 gives an outline of the career Steinbeck pursued as a writer. Starting with episodes from his days at Stanford University, it touches upon his friendship with such people as Carlton Sheffield, Carl Wilhelmson and Katherine Beswick, and includes their photos. The most interesting part of this chapter must be his encounter with and his marriage to his first wife, Carol Henning, who contributed immensely to his career as a successful writer. In chapter 5 Monterey Peninsula is highlighted. It contains many episodes and photos that stimulate our curiosity about Tortilla Flat: one of them is an old picture of Hotel Del Monte burning in the 1929 fire. After giving a brief history of Spanish Monterey, the author answers such questions as “What kind of people are paisanos?” and “Where is Tortilla Flat?” Chapter 6 mostly deals with Steinbeck’s life in Pacific Grove when he was struggling to be a professional writer. Quoting Carol’s words—“I put all there was of me into his life,” the author indicates her commitment to her husband’s creative work. “Carol may well have wanted children” the author writes, “She probably was pregnant and had an abortion at some point in the 1930s—but she knew that he didn’t and wouldn’t.” This statement helps us see a secret aspect of her relationship to her husband, which had not been revealed before. Chapter 7 illustrates Monterey and Steinbeck’s encounter and his close friendship with Ed Ricketts, which gave birth to Cannery Row. With the photos of Ed Ricketts and his laboratory, the author recounts why the two men came to be interested in each other and how much influence the marine biologist gave Steinbeck. This chapter also refers to the sardine industry business in 1930s and the business background of Cannery Row. Chapter 8 begins with a nice nostalgic picture of Carmel in the 1930s. At the outset of this chapter Shillinglaw states the crucial role Carmel played for Steinbeck, saying:
The comments on “Carmel in the Early Years” and “Carmel in the 1930s,” which provide us with a brief history of the town, explain why Steinbeck was fascinated with the town. Chapter 9 is devoted to Los Gatos—a place where Steinbeck wrote such important novels as Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. This chapter is especially significant since it offers the reader the social backgrounds of the 1930s which drove Steinbeck to write about the distressed farmers in his most successful work, The Grapes of Wrath. The last chapter is about Mexico. It shows his love for Mexico and its people, which is reflected in his journal Sea of Cortez. This book can be highly recommended, since
it is a very informative, helpful and delightful survey. It gives
us a bit of everything about Steinbeck—his personal history,
his writing, and numerous beautiful photos. It will be valued among
both Steinbeck scholars and students who want to know more about
Steinbeck and his works. This volume is a splendid companion to
guide us around Steinbeck country. Of Mice and Men, according to the author of A Journey into Steinbeck’s California, “is, perhaps, the book that makes readers out of more high school students than any other.” It was certainly the case with this reader, who had the book recommended by an English teacher, went out and bought it, and was immediately captured by the Steinbeck writing magic. I was a long way away from the world being described, in the industrial north of England, but Steinbeck spoke to me, and his characters spoke to me, and it was the start of a life-long love affair for the work of this special author. Known for classic novels like The Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, East of Eden, The Pearl and The Winter of Our Discontent, as well as some great non-fiction including Travels with Charley, A Russian Journal and Once There Was a War, John Steinbeck was a worthy winner of the Nobel prize for Literature in 1962. The author of A Journey into Steinbeck’s California, Susan Shillinglaw, knows her subject intimately. As well as being Professor of English at San Jose State University, she is the Scholar in Residence at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas. John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, and lived in various places throughout the state which influenced his writing so much. Shillinglaw traces Steinbeck’s personal and literary journey through California, and while this is no way an in-depth biography of one of America’s favorite authors, the reader gets to know Steinbeck in a more personal and intimate way. The books is fully illustrated throughout, and we get to see Steinbeck’s houses, the view through his window, see the landscapes he saw, the place he worked, meet his wives and his friends. A Journey into Steinbeck’s California is no dry academic study or biography, but a warm portrait of a man by someone who has the ability to see California through his eyes, to show us its influences on him, and to recreate the times in which he lived. Steinbeck isn’t particularly thought of as an author who turned his life into fiction, but his works like The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men and especially Cannery Row did come out of the writer’s personal life and his loves and friendships. In these pages we meet the characters who inspired him—personally as well as creatively in his work. “With Steinbeck,” writes Shillinglaw, “we can pay attention to the slant of afternoon light, catch some of the region’s layered past, and get a glimpse of small human stories tucked into inland valleys.” It’s those glimpses of small human stories that make Steinbeck such a great writer, whose work will last longer than many of his contemporaries who were more interested in shouting about their own lives than in quietly describing the lives of other people. To Steinbeck ordinary people were extraordinary. Susan Shillinglaw is a skillful and evocative
writer herself. “Steinbeck,” she writes, “never
again lived in the Salinas Valley once he left home at seventeen
But the smells and sounds and sights of his home valley never left
him.” For those of his readers who have not yet visited Steinbeck’s
California, this book in the impressive ArtPlace series from Roaring
Forties Press is the next best thing. And it answered a question
I asked myself just a few weeks ago, after re-reading Travels with
Charley. Whatever happened to the truck Rocinante that Steinbeck
drove across America? A California native, his writings have been perceived as odes to such locales as Salinas (his birthplace) as well as Monterey, Carmel, Pacific Grove and Los Gatos. In Steinbeck's hands, the Salinas Valley of his youth becomes "a template for human struggles" in the 1952 novel East of Eden which we discover he actually wrote many years earlier in New York. And while cinema aficionados may marvel at the film version with James Dean in his first screen appearance, only in the book version would you be privy to such poetically descriptive phrases of the Gabilan Mountain Range, "light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness and a kind of invitation." Although the 23-year-old Steinbeck toyed with the idea of kicking loose his California moorings with trips to China, Nicaragua and Mexico City, we learn that he eventually settled on a steamer trip to New York. After six months which included working in construction at Madison Square Garden -- and still unpublished -- Steinbeck admitted that New York, "beat the pants off me," and returned home to Salinas. The trip, however, provided the material for his first novel, Cup of Gold, which was published three years later; good news for would be writers who don't experience the rare thrill of instant success. Monterey was the setting for 1945's Cannery Row with it's suggestive cover blurb, "The Street Where Love Comes Easy." In real life, love didn't come that easy, until 1950 when, at the age of 48, Steinbeck met and married wife number three, Elaine Scott. Shillinglaw's book, incidentally, is heavily documented not only with wonderful vintage photos of Steinbeck's family and friends but also extraordinary current photographs of California landscapes by Nancy Burnett. There are also pictures of original dust jackets from such classic books as Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath, as well as some unexpected guests such as Marilyn Monroe making a surprise appearance as Castroville's 1948 Artichoke Queen. Should the reader care to visit any of the places depicted, there are detailed maps and addresses for such must see spots as Lovers Point Park and Beach in Pacific Grove, the quaint Tuck Box Tearoom described as Carmel's most beloved bungalow, and the Salinas family home at 132 Central Avenue which is now The Steinbeck House Restaurant and Gift Shop. "Perhaps California could never have
contained restless John Steinbeck," Shillinglaw writes. "Since
his early twenties he had dreamed of other places." True, but
there's no denying that California was clearly in his blood. 1053 Santa Fe Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94706 • info@roaringfortiespress.com • 510-527-5461 Copyright © 2008 Roaring Forties Press. All rights reserved.
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