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‘Dogging Steinbeck’ gets a critical read from China

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Getting emails from smart, satisfied but critical readers of “Dogging Steinbeck” — whether it’s travel master Paul Theroux or an Everyreader — is gratifying.

This one, from a Missouri man who’s teaching English somewhere in the vastness of China, is one of the best-written pieces of correspondence I’ve  received in my journalism career — and I’ve gotten probably a thousand of them. I’ve deleted his last name at his request.

Dear Mr. Steigerwald,

My name is Randy and I am writing concerning your book, Dogging Steinbeck. I will begin by telling you that I enjoyed it very much and admire you for your effort and your reporting. Your book came to my attention as I was browsing and downloading books for my Kindle.

Although I had not read “Travels With Charley” for many years, I remembered enjoying it as a kid — I am now 63 years old — and was intrigued by your concept. I hope you don’t mind if I raise three points which came to mind after reading your book.

Perhaps it would be relevant to tell you at this point that, since 2004, I have been living in China, working as an English teacher in a strange combination of semi-retirement and self-exile. However, most of my life was spent in a much more conventional setting of a small town in central Missouri.

Now, except for brief trips each summer back to visit my parents in Missouri, all of my knowledge of current events and trends in America comes via the Internet — principally from Yahoo news when I go online to check email. That leads to my first point…

One of the great pleasures in reading your book is that you found so many friendly and interesting people in your travels. Certainly the mass media does not spend much time talking about nice people; the weirdos, extremists, instant celebrities, and truly dangerous are far more likely to be in the news that I see. It was nice to be told that the vast majority of average Americans were still pleasant and helpful to a traveling stranger.

I was also very pleased to be repeatedly reminded by you of the many ways that our daily lives have vastly improved over the past five decades. It happens that my small town in Missouri is on old Route 66 so I have personal knowledge of just how dangerous those highways were 50 years ago. Likewise, our medical technology, self-educational opportunities, and personal comfort today are incomparably superior to that of our youth.

Do you recall that old saying, “Don’t go looking for trouble… for you will surely find it.”? It seems to me that most people, most days go through life in a responsive mode. If we approach them in a friendly and respectful manner, they will respond in kind. (If, on the other hand, you act like a jerk, you will quickly encounter obstacles and reciprocation.)

Perhaps your book is like another more famous volume, Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” in that the book also tells us a great deal about the writer. If you encountered many nice people, maybe it is because you expected them to be nice and that you impressed them as being a nice guy yourself.

Still, compared to the shallow, ungrammatical characters that Steinbeck wrote about in his book, you probably met more interesting people and had more fun — not counting his lavish expenditures at high-end hotels and with his wife’s rich Texas friends.

The second point I would like to mention is about the controversy that your book has apparently created. I have to say “apparently” because I was not aware of this literary turmoil until I read your book.

Frankly, I am not a huge Steinbeck aficionado. In my younger years, I read several of his books and enjoyed them but I have not thought of them (or him) for many years. Therefore, before I read your book, I also downloaded the original “Charley” at the same time and read it again — for probably the first time in 40 years.

Immediately after I finished it, I began your book. It was interesting to me to read about how the Steinbeck establishment went into damage control mode and, indeed, even attacked your credibility, truthfulness, and motives. What now seems incontrovertible was that Steinbeck did wholly manufacture entire episodes and characters.

I am willing to accept an explanation of “artistic license”; indeed, I have no problem with that. What I found more disturbing was your revelation that, rather than being a lonely, thoughtful old man taking a meandering, low-budget trip, Steinbeck was not roughing it at all. Your conclusion that he spent only about five nights in his entire journey actually sleeping in his camper greatly diminishes the aura of Steinbeck, the common man.

My third point is that I wish to take exception with your conclusion that “Charley” was not a good book. I am willing to grant you that this is more a work of fiction than a travel book but I still maintain that it is wonderful reading. I had forgotten just how good it is until I read it again last week.

Okay, finding an itinerant Shakespearean actor/vagabond drifting across North Dakota strains credibility now that you have brought it to my attention. But, honestly, I don’t care; he was an articulate, warm character. If Steinbeck used these literary creations to make his point… well, that is what novelists do — and he did it rather skillfully, I thought.

A big part of the writing challenge is in creating a picture that the reader finds understandable. In browsing through many of the books available to download on my Kindle, a great many authors are far, far less adroit with such literary devices than Steinbeck.

In conclusion, if you somehow managed to tarnish the reputation of this American icon, to show his literary feet of clay and expose his wealthy lifestyle and attitudes, so be it.

I have a great many concerns about our society, many of which you addressed in your book. However, one of the brightest aspects of our current and near-future condition as a nation is the transparency made possible by our new technology in all of its forms — Internet searches, viral news (even if mostly fluff), and self-publishing, among others.

If our business and political leaders begin to realize that their “good ol’ boy” network is being carefully scrutinized — even, as in this case, 50 years later — they may curtail some of the more outrageous behaviors and deceptions.

In closing, I send you best wishes from China for your continued literary success. I hope it is a commercially successful future also.

Best regards…

Truman Capote & the Fudging of “In Cold Blood”

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Seems John Steinbeck wasn’t alone when it came to inventing facts for a “nonfiction” book.

Truman Capote, the father of the nonfiction novel, apparently did a lot more fact-fudging and truth-twisting “In Cold Blood” (1966) than he ever admitted and most people thought.

The Wall Street Journal’s Kevin Helliker has the sordid details in “Capote Classic ‘In Cold Blood’ Tainted by Long-Lost Files.”

Capote’s fictional tricks and lies in “In Cold Blood” were not as  thoroughly misleading as Steinbeck’s literary fraudulence in “Travels With Charley,” which I detail in “Dogging Steinbeck.”

But Capote gives me further ammo in my crusade for a new genre — True Nonfiction.

 

What did free-marketeer Larry O’Donnell tell the Prez?

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Yesterday the MSNBC all-stars — Rachel Maddow, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Lawrence O’Donnell –  dropped into the White House’s West Wing to share their brilliant tax ideas with the President.

Let’s hope that Mr. Obama listened to nothing said by  Ms. Tedious or  Rev. Al, who if he gets any smaller will be appearing in Pixar movies.

But Larry O’Donnell, despite his nightly liberal rantings, could teach the Prez (and his liberal choirmates) a thing or two about the free enterprise system and why killing what’s left of it with higher taxes and more dumb regulations is a bad thing to do.

In 2005 I asked O’Donnell, the executive producer of “West Wing” and a screenwriter,  about all the fine free-market rhetoric he was putting into the mouth of Alan Alda’s conservative Republican character.

I asked him if he really believed all that Milton Friedman stuff:

“Yes. I believe (the late supply-side economist) Jude Winniski’s arguments about how high tax rates damage the economies of poor African countries. But what I would not want to suggest about it is, if we fixed the tax rates, everything is going to be OK. The other huge problem that Africa has is American agriculture subsidies, which are a disastrous policy, I believe, on every level, in terms of what it does to poverty internationally, in terms of what it does to our misallocation of resources here. I wouldn’t know that if I hadn’t majored in economics in college. I just wouldn’t.”

He said not to worry — there was no inner libertarian trying to get out:

“No, no, no. I’m a European socialist, believe me – I’m far to the left. But I understand. I’m a kind of practical socialist. I know we failed. A lot of our ideas have failed, so I’m not with them anymore. I’m willing to take from a grab-bag of stuff that works….

“Unfortunately, I think respect for the market seems to be something that I have not seen anyone derive outside education. I haven’t seen people gravitate toward a natural respect for the market. And it doesn’t have rhetoric to go with it. I think the rhetoric Vinick (Alda’s character) used about it was about the best I’ve heard….

“Where Vinick was talking about the market most clearly was in the energy discussion, when they talk about government support for alternative forms of energy. And Vinick starts with, ‘I don’t think politicians are going to be very good at picking energy sources.’ And then he says ‘The government didn’t shift us from using shale oil to using the oil discovered under the ground.’ ”

The whole interview is  here but don’t tell O’Donnell’s bosses at MSNBC what he really thinks about Nike sweatshops and oil companies, or he might have to try to get a job at Fox.

 

‘Travels With Charley’ turns 50

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John Steinbeck’s beloved, iconic, best-selling road book “Travels With Charley in Search of America” turned 50 on July 27.

For half a century, we were told and taught that it was a work of nonfiction. It wasn’t.

“Travels With Charley” (1962) is not the true and honest account of the cross-country trip Steinbeck made in the fall of 1960. You can read about how I stumbled upon the truth about his last major work in “Sorry, Charley” in the Post-Gazette or the April 2011 issue of Reason magazine. At Reason.com you can read “Whitewashing John Steinbeck,” which for the first time publicly reveals a highly X-rated paragraph of filthy language that was cut from the original manuscript of “Charley” in 1962.

The marketing of ‘Camper’ John Steinbeck

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“Travels With Charley in Search of America” turns 50 this summer.

That means for half a century the young and the gullible have been misled into thinking “TWC” is the true account of his 11-week trip from Sag Harbor to California and back in 1960.

“TWC” isn’t true or honest, as I discovered by accident in 2010.

Everyone should take at least one coast-to-coast road tour of America  in their life, alone or with a dog or another human. But everyone should also know that the romantic journey  Steinbeck depicted in “TWC” was nothing like his real trip. Or one they’re likely to have.

The publisher of “Travels With Charley,” Viking Press, did a clever/devious  job of marketing Steinbeck’s last major work as a nonfiction book when it came out in July of 1962. It jumped to the nonfiction best-seller lists at the New York Times and Time magazine and stayed there for over a year.

The famous illustrations by Don Freeman on the dust jacket and inside covers created the impression that Steinbeck and Charley spent three months on the American road, roughing it and camping out almost like hobos as they carefully documented the soul of a changing nation and its people.Travels_with_Charley

Though Steinbeck himself makes it clear in the book that he stayed at a posh hotel in Chicago (for four days) and at a fancy ranch in Texas over Thanksgiving, the book’s reviewers in 1962  bought into the romantic on-the-road story line.

In those innocent days, no one questioned the “authenticity” of the cast of wooden characters Steinbeck said he met or the book’s nonfiction designation.

But how often did Steinbeck actually camp out or sleep in Rocinante during his circumnavigation of America? Not very often.

The book itself is little help. We know Steinbeck made up several of the big campout scenes — on the farm in New Hampshire (when he reportedly stayed overnight at an exclusive inn) and two nights under the stars in North Dakota (which, unless the week of Oct. 9, 1960, had nine days, was an impossible feat).

I don’t pretend to have seen every shred & shard of Steinbeck’s massive archives.

But based on the “Charley” book, his road letters, Jackson Benson’s biography and several newspaper articles, I’d say Steinbeck probably slept in Rocinante a maximum of three or four nights between Oct. 5, when he met his wife Elaine in Chicago, and early December, when he returned to New York City.

In those last 60 or so days of his trip, Steinbeck slept at the Ambassador East in Chicago four nights, at Adlai Stevenson’s house near Chicago one night and at motels in North Dakota, Montana and Seattle (probably four nights).

He and Elaine stayed at motels and resorts for almost a week as they traveled down the Pacific Coast from Seattle to San Francisco, where they stayed at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco for four days.bu_francis

They then drove south to the Monterey Peninsula where they visited one of Steinbeck’s sisters and stayed until the middle of November at Steinbeck’s modest family cottage in Pacific Grove.

After Elaine flew on to Texas, John drove in Rocinante from Monterey to Amarillo. For the first four days on the road, until Flagstaff, his old friend Toby Street traveled with him — so it’s unlikely Steinbeck cuddled up in the camper with Toby on any of those nights.

When Steinbeck reached Texas, he stayed in a downtown motel in Amarillo for three or four days, spent at least several days at a nearby cattle ranch for millionaires over the Thanksgiving holiday and then visited some of Elaine’s relatives in Austin.

After Elaine flew home to New York, Steinbeck drove to New Orleans for a quick peek at the daily circus of bigotry outside a recently integrated elementary school, then headed home as fast as he could.

The last reliable date and location I have found for Steinbeck on his trip was Dec.  3, when he mailed post-cards to his agent and his editor from Pelahatchie, Ms.

While he may have grabbed some sleep in Rocinante on his sprint home, Steinbeck — road bleary and dispirited and out of gas — certainly didn’t do any leisurely camping or last-minute research into the American soul.ca_232_copy

Steinbeck was on the road for about 75 days in the fall of 1960 — from Sept. 23 to about Dec. 5 or 6.

As far as I can tell, on nearly 65 of those nights he slept in hotels, motels, resorts, a cottage, a ranch or with friends or relatives. Twice he slept in his camper on the grounds of Eleanor Brace’s house on Deer Isle, Maine; three of four times he slept in his camper at truck stops or “trailer courts.”

The number of times he slept in his camper in the middle of nowhere, as depicted in the book’s illustrations? Once or twice. He told his wife he parked by a bridge overnight in the interior of Maine. And, though there is no corroboration, he says he slept in a canyon in New Mexico by the Continental Divide and near a lake between Buffalo and Chicago.

It’s testimony to Steinbeck’s great writing skill — and the gullibility of the age — that he was able to create a classic “nonfiction” road book around such a pedestrian, comfortable journey. It’s testimony to the laziness and credulity of scholars that Steinbeck and Viking Press (now part of the Penguin Group) have gotten away with their literary deceit for 52 years.