Although he cultivated reclusiveness and solitude, John Steinbeck was a writer immersed in and moved by the events, personalities, and conditions of his time. The indispensable primary accounts of the novelist’s multifarious life and career are: Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten, eds., Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (New York: The Viking Press, 1975); Jackson J. Benson, The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer (New York: The Viking Press, 1984); and Adrian H. Goldstone and John R. Payne, John Steinbeck: A Bibliographical Catalogue of the Adrian H. Goldstone Collection (Austin: Humanities Research Center, 1974). Equally valuable are: John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez (New York: The Viking Press, 1951), which includes “About Ed Ricketts”; John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (New York: The Viking Press, 1969); Florian J. Shasky and Susan F. Riggs, eds., Letters to Elizabeth: A Selection of Letters from John Steinbeck to Elizabeth Otis (San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 1978); Thomas Fensch, Steinbeck and Covici: The Story of a Friendship (Middlebury, VT: Paul S. Eriksson, 1979); and K. Nakayama and H. Hirose, eds., Selected Essays of John Steinbeck (Tokyo: Shinozaki Shorin, 1984).
Professor Benson’s great book makes everyone else’s seem like a footnote, though occasionally shiny nuggets still turn up that don’t appear in his biography. These other works are original and helpful: Lewis Gannett, John Steinbeck: Personal and Bibliographical Notes (New York: The Viking Press, 1939); E. W. Tedlock and C. V. Wicker, eds., Steinbeck and His Critics: A Record of Twenty-Five Years (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1957); Peter Lisca, The Wide World of John Steinbeck (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1958); Richard Astro, John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1973); Nelson Valjean, John Steinbeck: The Errant Knight (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1975); Joel Hedgpeth, The Outer Shores, Parts 1 and 2 (Eureka, CA: Mad River Press, 1978, 1979); Terry G. Halladay, ed., “’The Closest Witness’: The Autobiographical Reminiscences of Gwyndolyn Conger Steinbeck” (MA Thesis, Stephen F. Austin State University, 1979); John Gross and Lee Richard Hayman, John Steinbeck: A Guide to the Collection of the Salinas Public Library (Salinas: Salinas Public Library, 1979); Susan F. Riggs, A Catalogue of the John Steinbeck Collection at Stanford University (Stanford: Stanford University Libraries, 1980); Bradford Morrow, John Steinbeck: A Collection of Books & Manuscripts Formed by Harry Valentine of Pacific Grove, California (Santa Barbara: Bradford Morrow Bookseller Ltd., 1980); Carlton Sheffield, Steinbeck: The Good Companion (Portola Valley, CA: American Lives Endowment, 1983); Joseph Millichap, Steinbeck and Film (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1983); Robert DeMott, Steinbeck’s Reading: A Catalogue of Books Owned and Borrowed (New York: Garland, 1984); Robert H. Woodward, The Steinbeck Research Center at San Jose State University: A Descriptive Catalogue (San Jose: San Jose Studies, 1985); Bruce Ariss, Inside Cannery Row: Sketches from the Steinbeck Era (San Francisco: Lexikos, 1988); and Jackson J. Benson, Looking for Steinbeck’s Ghost (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988).
For specific analysis of and background to Steinbeck’s most famous novel, the following are recommended: Joseph Henry Jackson, Preface (originally printed as “Why Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath”) to the two-volume, Thomas Hart Benton illustrated deluxe edition of The Grapes of Wrath (New York: Limited Editions Club, 1940); Warren French, ed., A Companion to The Grapes of Wrath (New York: The Viking Press, 1963); Agnes McNeill Donohue, ed., A Casebook on The Grapes of Wrath (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1968); Peter Lisca, ed., The Grapes of Wrath, Text and Criticism (New York: The Viking Press, 1972); Warren French, Filmguide to The Grapes of Wrath (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973); Robert Con Davis, ed., Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Grapes of Wrath (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982); and John Ditsky, ed., Critical Essays on The Grapes of Wrath (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1989).
I have frequently, but sometimes silently, relied upon all these groups of books for guidance, information, inspiration, and verification. The following notes to Working Days, then, much as they seem like poor relatives at a rich person’s feast, are intended to perform an erstwhile service by sketching some of the private allusions and public references found in Steinbeck’s journal. The annotations are drawn from many published and unpublished sources, and of the latter, notably Steinbeck’s personal and professional correspondence with the staff of his agency, McIntosh and Otis, especially the fabulous cache of letters to and from Annie Laurie Williams, which until 1987 were restricted from public view. In addition, I have supplemented these with personal interviews and various archival documents. The aim, as Steinbeck once said, has been to create a whole picture, a unified field of facts and intimations, “where everything is an index of everything else.”
NOTES: PART I
ENTRY #1
Gene. Eugene Ainsworth married one of Steinbeck’s older sisters, Elizabeth (b. 1894). They were living in Stockton with their three children when he died on January 22, 1938, of strep infection.
Visalia and Nipomo. The former is the seat of Tulare County, located between Fresno and Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley, which itself is the southern part of the great Central Valley of California. The plight of 5,000 stricken migrant families, in the flooded country around Visalia, fully engaged Steinbeck’s attention and compassion. What he witnessed there became the backdrop for the final scenes of The Grapes of Wrath. For three years running the latter, a small town north of Santa Barbara, had been the scene of starvation and misery among migrant pea pickers whose numbers (lured by inaccurate labor estimates and unscrupulous contractors) were far larger than needed to get in the crop. In February and March 1938, several hundred families were marooned in Nipomo.
NOTES: PART II
ENTRY #2
Work goes well. Steinbeck, at work since May 26, had already written what would become Chapters 1 and 2 of the published novel. Here, he is about to write 3, the symbolic intercalary chapter on the land turtle’s determined progress across “the concrete highway.” It became one of his favorite sections, and he frequently read it aloud to friends. For clarity and uniformity, subsequent references to episodes, scenes, sections, and/or chapters of the novel will be to the first published version, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: The Viking Press, 1939), and will be, wherever possible, incorporated parenthetically within brackets in the text of Steinbeck’s entries. With the exception of minor differences in chapter numbering (in the early going Steinbeck numbered the “general,” or intercalary, chapters alternately, not consecutively, with the “particular” chapters on the Joads—see his Entry #9 below) the sequence and arrangement of the holograph manuscript and the published version are precisely the same.
ENTRY #3
Duke. Carlton “Duke” (or “Dook”) Sheffield, Steinbeck’s Stanford University classmate (they roomed together in Encina Hall from January to June 1923, when Sheffield graduated). A lifelong friend, the independent, Thoreauvian, Sheffield was at various times a teacher, a graduate student in English at Stanford, and a newspaperman. In 1938 he was working as a journalist for the Marysville (CA) Appeal-Democrat. During his visit (he arrived in Los Gatos on the afternoon of June 2—see next Entry) Steinbeck read aloud “with restrained glee the chapter on the turtle” (C.A. Sheffield/Robert DeMott, letter, July 1, 1985).
Pauls. The novelist Louis Paul (aka Leroi Placet) and his wife Mary had moved from New York to Palo Alto, close enough (about twenty miles from Los Gatos) for the two couples to continue a felicitous and frequent friendship that had started in 1937 in New York City (John Steinbeck/Louis and Mary Paul, letter, August 15, 1937; courtesy of University of Virginia Library). Like Steinbeck, Paul (1901-1970), an Army veteran and ex-San Francisco longshoreman, preferred experience over education as preparation and background for writing fiction. During the period of this journal, Paul published four of his fourteen novels: The Man Who Left Home (Chicago: Black Cat Press, 1938), The Wrong World (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1938), A Passion
for Privacy (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1940), and The Reverend Ben Pool (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1941). See DeMott, Steinbeck’s Reading (pp. 89—90, 167—68). Starting with his appreciation of “No More Trouble for Jedwick” (first prize in the 0. Henry Memorial Award: Prize Stories of 1934, which also included Steinbeck’s “The Murder”), Steinbeck’s enthusiasm for and encouragement of Paul’s work remained constant until the early 1940s, when Steinbeck, following his separation from Carol, and his move from Los Gatos, appears to have lost touch with Paul. However, Paul, who had published a glowing review of Of Mice and Men in the New York Herald Tribune Book Review (February 28, 1937), eventually became perplexed by the boldly symbolic and elevated quality of The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck inscribed a gift copy of the Covici-Friede limited edition The Red Pony (1937), “For Louis and Mary with still increasing affection”; and a first edition of The Grapes of Wrath, “For Louis and Mary in gratitude.”
Rays. Martin Ray (1905—1976), ex-stockbroker turned pioneering, celebrated, and iconoclastic vintner, lived with his first wife, Elsie (d. 1951), on Mount Eden, above Big Basin in Saratoga, northwest of Los Gatos. In 1936 Martin Ray bought the Santa Cruz Mountain vineyards of Paul Masson’s Champagne Company, where he produced brilliant, exorbitantly priced vintages. He sold out to Seagram’s in 1943, but shortly afterward started the smaller Martin Ray Vineyards. Steinbeck and Ray were temperamentally akin—both were aloof from society, self-sufficient, demanding of themselves and others, individualistic, and thoroughly dedicated to their art (Mrs. Eleanor Ray/Robert DeMott, telephone interview, June 4, 1985).
ENTRY #4
Paul Jordan Smith. Smith (1885—1971), a writer and former English instructor at UCLA, served from 1933 to 1958 as the influential Literary Editor for the Los Angeles Times. He not only reviewed Steinbeck’s books favorably (he later called The Grapes of Wrath one of the “most thrilling” reading experiences he ever had) but had tried—unsuccessfully—to arrange publication of Steinbeck’s 1920s’ apprentice fiction. Presumably Smith never made it to see Steinbeck that summer.
ENTRY #5
The Long Valley. Steinbeck’s only collection of short fiction, originally intended to be published by Covici-Friede in 1938. When the firm (Donald Friede had left in 1935) went bankrupt, The Viking Press hired Pascal Covici as an editor and bought Steinbeck’s contract, so that the book was issued in September 1938, without a hitch, and to very strong reviews. (See Entries #49, 70, 79, and 81 below.) The book gathered short stories which appeared from 1933 to 1937 in such periodicals as Harper’s, Esquire, and Atlantic Monthly; it also included the first appearance of “Flight,”as well as the complete publication of The Red Pony.
Tolertons. Like the Steinbecks, David Tolerton, a sculptor, and his wife, Lavinia, a painter, were part of the liberal artistic/intellectual community of the otherwise conservative Los Gatos. According to Benson, True Adventures of John Steinbeck (p. 351), the year before, David Tolerton had been directly instrumental in the San Francisco Theatre Union’s production of Of Mice and Men. See Entry #49 below.
Bob C. Robert Cathcart, a classmate of Steinbeck’s at Stanford (AB, 1930; LLB, 1934), was a close friend and confidant, especially during the 1920s, when the two men corresponded frequently. In 1938 Cathcart was practicing law in San Francisco.
Margery Bailey. The formidable Dr. Margery Bailey (1891- 1963), an exciting teacher and an early mentor to Steinbeck, taught in the English Department at Stanford and was a major force in the English Club, where Steinbeck first encountered her. They had a strong, but rocky, personal relationship thereafter, partly because Bailey disliked Steinbeck’s propensity for sentimentality. See Susan Riggs, “Steinbeck at Stanford,” The Stanford Magazine, 4 (Fall/Winter 1976), p. 17. See Entry #55 below.
ENTRY #7
Lack of solitude. The one-story Steinbeck house, designed by Carol, built in mid-1936 on a secluded, heavily wooded 1.7-acre plot (purchased in May from Eleanor Bowdish) on Greenwood Lane, Los Gatos, was only about 800 square feet in size. Even with the later addition of a guest house, the five-room cottage was still so small that Steinbeck was continually subjected to interruptions from within and, with increasing new home construction in the area, from without as well. Most of the time, he wrote in a spartanly furnished 8-by-8-foot room, but at other times worked in the guest room, or, if weather permitted, on the porch deck (Connie Skiptares [With Assistance of Robert DeMott], “Garlic Gulch,” San Jose Mercury News, March 12, 1986, Extra 4, pp. 1-3). For more on Steinbeck’s Greenwood Lane house, see James P. Delgado, “Garlic Gulch: John Steinbeck in Los Gatos, 1936-1938,” The Book Club of California Quarterly News-Letter, XLVI (Summer 1981), 59-64.
Music. Carlton Sheffield recalled the “simple” plan of the Steinbeck house included a speaker system “... set into the upper wall of the big room to carry music from a specially designed record player for their growing collection of good music.” Sheffield, Steinbeck: The Good Companion (p. 214). See also Entry #20 below for the specific importance Steinbeck placed on listening to music.
ENTRY #8
Rodman. The American poet and anthologist Selden Rodman (b. 1909) was an editor and founder (with Alfred M. Bingham) of Common Sense (1932-1943), a monthly political/literary magazine published in New York City. Like several other literary editors during this period Rodman wanted Steinbeck to submit work to his magazine; the novelist had nothing on hand to send, though later he helped his friend Richard Lovejoy publish there.
ENTRY #11
Crawford ... Ford. Broderick Crawford (1912-1986) and Wallace Ford (1898—1966) had won acclaim starring as, respectively, Lennie Small and George Milton in the George S. Kaufman production of Of Mice and Men, which, after closing its Broadway run on May 21, 1938, was being readied for an American tour, featuring a slightly toned-down script. At the cast party on closing night Steinbeck’s drama agent, Annie Laurie Williams, presented each player with a first edition of the play, including a personal dedication from Steinbeck tipped in. To Ford, he wrote, “For God’s sake stick with this play you have helped to make so much better than it is”; to Crawford, he wrote, “Your playing of this difficult part must be a work of great genius. I wish I could indicate to you my gratification. You are a great actor. One must be to play simply.” (Courtesy of Annie Laurie Williams Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.) Both men visited Steinbeck during the summer of 1938.
Good work. “New book moves and I like it,” Steinbeck told his literary agent. “Goes easily. It used to worry me when they came so easily, but counting the two years of fighting with it, I guess it isn’t so easy” (John Steinbeck/Elizabeth Otis, letter, June 10, 1938; courtesy of Stanford University Library).
ENTRY #13
Champagne. Martin Ray continued the Paul Masson tradition in champagnes and sparkling wines, a fact not lost on the chastened Steinbeck, who noted their wrathful effect in the left-hand margin of this entry: “Couldn’t Concentrate” and “NO WORK HANGOVER.” He needed one more day to complete Chapter 6.
ENTRY #15
Beth. Elizabeth Ainsworth (b. 1894), Steinbeck’s sister. Between 1933 and 1938, one of her sons, as well as her father, mother, and husband, died. She was understandably “washed out” (Mrs. Eugene Ainsworth/Robert DeMott, letter, July 12, 1985). Steinbeck was thoroughly moved by “remarkable” Beth’s strength during this period. He later dedicated The Winter of Our Discontent (New York: The Viking Press, 1962), “To Beth, my sister, whose light bums clear.” See also Entry #20.
Fred S.... Dick’s job. Frederick R. Soule, whom Steinbeck had known since 1936, was Regional Information Advisor (in San Francisco) for the Farm Security Administration (formerly the Resettlement Administration); Dick Oliver, a friend of Steinbeck’s, then living in New York, applied for a position with the F.S.A. in Washington. Steinbeck wrote directly to Pare Lorentz, who—about to become Director of the newly created United States Film Agency, another progressive New Deal organization, housed temporarily with the F.
S.A.—had some clout in the capital. Steinbeck’s action was partly altruistic, partly self-protective—the more friends he had in the F.S.A., the more advocates he would have for the veracity of the book he was writing, which, he rightly predicted, would come in for a storm of attack from conservative groups of all kinds, especially the Associated Farmers.
ENTRY #16
Tristram Shandy. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1767), novel by Laurence Sterne (1713-1768).
Dad. In 1910 or 1911 Steinbeck’s father, John Ernst Steinbeck (1862—1935), opened a feed and grain store, The J. E. Steinbeck Feed Store, at 352 Main Street, Salinas. When the store went under, the elder Steinbeck worked briefly as a bookkeeper at the Spreckels Sugar Refinery, then, from 1924 until his death, as Treasurer of Monterey County, his office located in the county courthouse, West Alisal Street, Salinas (Pauline Pearson/Robert DeMott, interview, May 1984). Except for the following 1951 reminiscence, Steinbeck wrote very little about his father: “My greatest fault ... is my lack of ability for relaxation.... Even in sleep I am tight and restless.... I think I got this through my father. I remember his restlessness. It sometimes filled the house to a howling although he did not speak often. He was a singularly silent man.... He was strong rather than profound. Cleverness only confused him—and this is interesting—he had no ear for music whatever. Patterns of music were meaningless to him.... In my struggle to be a writer, it was he who supported and backed me and explained me—not my mother. She wanted me desperately to be something decent like a banker. She would have liked me to be a successful writer like [Ed.—Booth] Tarkington, but this she didn’t believe I could do. But my father wanted me to be myself.... He admired anyone who laid down his line and followed it undeflected to the end. I think this was because he abandoned his star in little duties and let his head go under in the swirl of family and money and responsibility. To be anything pure requires an arrogance he did not have, and a selfishness he could not bring himself to assume. He was a man intensely disappointed in himself. And I think he liked the complete ruthlessness of my design to be a writer in spite of mother and hell.” See Steinbeck’s Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (p. 103).
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