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08/07/2006

Steinbeck Country — You gotta love any event that brings together author and raconteur Thom Steinbeck (son of John), angelic singer and musician Sarah Lee Guthrie, (daughter of Arlo and granddaughter of Woody), the head of the National Book Awards, a legion of readers so enamored of John Steinbeck that they can name every character and memorable line in East of Eden, and a seemingly endless quantity of fine Monterrey Peninsula wine. I was there, too, invited to speak at the 26th annual Steinbeck Festival in the great author’s hometown of Salinas, California....

Every August, the National Steinbeck Center draws scholars, readers, collectors and other lovers of all things Steinbeck to Salinas for a long weekend of talks, tours, music and history. I was surprised to learn many of the attendees have been coming faithfully each year for more than a decade. This year, the author’s son delivered a new mandate: Broaden the program to include sessions and speakers that are not specifically about John Steinbeck and his work, but which celebrate literature and nonfiction with a social consciousness. I was one of the guinea pigs in this experiment, there to talk and answer questions about my work in narrative nonfiction and immersion journalism. I was delighted by the warm and enthusiastic response from the festival crowd.

This was quite a privilege for me, as Steinbeck is the author I most admire and who has long been an inspiration; he is the master of bringing readers out of their comfort zones and into worlds, stories and characters’ lives that they might not otherwise know, accept or embrace. I try to follow his example in my nonfiction.

Listening to Thom Steinbeck, author of the wonderful Down to a Soundless Sea, is always a hoot, and he was in fine form with recollections of his dad. In introducing his niece, Sarah Lee Guthrie, and her husband and fellow performer, Johnny Irion, he mentioned how his father reacted to a then-new song by Woody Guthrie that came out around the publication date of the Grapes of Wrath. The song was entitled Do-Re-Me and included these choice lyrics:

California's a garden of Eden
It's paradise to live and see
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do-re-me

Thom recalled his father’s note to Guthrie said, If you had just written this song a little sooner, you could have saved me a whole goddamned novel.