Jan 26th, 2010
Going beyond the reading list
He hung out with prostitutes, madams, fishermen, immigrants, field workers and hitch-hikers. Then he wrote their stories.
The city in California where he was born once burned his books.
He was a war correspondent in Europe who toured Russia on his own after the Second World War. He wanted to see what life under communism really looked like. Some Americans wondered if he was a communist.
He had three wives.
He won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
See, John Steinbeck is way cooler than you thought during that high school English class in which you were forced to read Of Mice and Men (or worse, the never-ending saga Grapes of Wrath).
I wrote this article detailing a weekend itinerary for exploring where Steinbeck grew up and drew inspiration for his life’s work.
Once you spend a weekend roving around his old haunts in Monterey County, its clear why Steinbeck painted in such stunning language both the landscape where he lived and the struggles of the tough immigrants who worked - and tried to earn a decent living - in the Salinas Valley. Both are tremendously inspirational.
What’s unique about the Salinas Valley is that its beauty - and its immigrant workforce - are still intact.