Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | John Steinbeck: The Observer | 4

0:11Imagine it's a hot July night in 1924. You're a World War I veteran, traveling with a crew of itinerant workers heading north from California toward Oregon. You've heard there might be jobs at the lumber mills there. You and your fellow travelers, who proudly call themselves hobos, have made camp for the night near a rail yard north of San Francisco. You're sipping bootleg whiskey and swapping stories with the other men. And among them is a young college student who says he's dropped out of school to travel and work. He's been scribbling in a notebook as you and the others tell tales of life on the road.

0:45Hey, what are you writing in that notebook, kid? Just some notes for a novel I'm working on. A novel? Yeah, haven't you ever wanted to write a novel? No, read a few, but write one? No, I don't think so. Well, I don't blame you, really. It's the hardest damn thing in the world. Doesn't seem so hard to me. You just tell folks a story, don't you? Well, that's the thing. I don't have enough stories, and guess what the notebook's for? To collect tales from people I meet. So far, though, I'm mostly hearing dirty jokes and obvious lies. You like this kid. He seems shy, but also sure of himself. You hand him your flask.

1:19Well, what kind of stories are you looking for? The young man takes a sip and then grimaces, handing the flask back. I guess I want a real personal story, a human story. I'd be willing to pay two dollars for a really believable humanistic story. Humanistic, huh? Well, I got one. Back when I was 14, my father died, and I hit the road searching. Searching? Searching for what? My mother. She'd gotten a job as a housekeeper somewhere on the Oregon coast, but the problem was I didn't know where. I got lost in the farms and fields for four days, wandering around with no food, hardly any water, didn't see a soul.

2:00That sounds awful. What happened? Well, here's where it gets interesting. Knowing you've got the kid hooked, you continue your story as he scribbles in his notebook, nodding eagerly to keep you talking. You want those two dollars, of course, but there's something else that inspires you to open up. Something about this kid that puts you at ease. You kept this story bottled up for years, but now you feel like it will be in good hands. Maybe someday, people out there in the world will get to hear it.

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3:24From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers, our history, your story.

3:45In 1939, John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, his epic tale of poor migrant workers during the Depression. The book's social commentary sparked controversy, and it was banned in some cities, but it was also an instant success that solidified his place as one of America's most beloved authors. Steinbeck's 30 books included such classics as Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row, and captured the toils of marginalized workers and ordinary Americans. His stories were drawn from a childhood in California's Salinas Valley, and the time he spent as a young man among itinerant workers during the Great Depression.

4:22Steinbeck was also a war correspondent and nonfiction writer, whose lifetime of storytelling earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. But his success and fame masked a life of domestic strife and illness. He struggled with alcohol and with his roles as a father and husband. But Steinbeck's legacy as a champion of the everyman would endure. This is Episode 4 in our six-part series on great American authors, The Observer.

4:53John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California, a farming town of 2 ,500 people just inland from the Pacific Ocean. His father, John Sr., managed a flour mill. His mother, Olive, a former teacher, was loving yet strict. Though they were of modest means, the Steinbecks lived in a large Victorian home in downtown Salinas. John Jr. was a shy, observant child, often doted on by two older sisters, Esther and Beth, and trailed everywhere by a younger sister, Mary. John spent much of his youth outdoors, alone, hiking the nearby Gabilan and Santa Lucia mountains. When his parents built a small vacation cottage in nearby Pacific Grove, John happily explored the caves and beaches of Monterey Bay.

5:39The cottage on 11th Avenue, just blocks from the shore, would become one of the most important places in John's life, a constant source of inspiration and escape. But when John was nine years old, his father lost his job at the mill, and the family would struggle financially for years afterward, with his father sometimes sinking into dark moods. Meanwhile, though John's mother could be stern and severe, she doted on him, calling him Muskrat and My Little Squirrel. She filled the house with books, and by age 14, John had become a voracious reader and storyteller. Encouraged by his mother and a high school teacher to try writing, John would lock himself in his bedroom to draft poems and short stories.

6:20Friends later described John as a serious and solemn boy. One friend said that the only time he saw John show any emotion at all was at the death of the family pony, Jill. In his senior year at Salinas High School, John joined a military training unit called the Cadets, which sometimes worked on local farms since many farmers were off fighting in World War I. This work introduced John to the ranch hands and migrant workers who would later populate his novels. But John's main ambition was still to become a professional writer. With that goal in mind, in 1919, at the age of 17, he enrolled at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

6:58His favorite instructor was Edith Miraliz, a beloved professor who served punch and cookies to her students. John took her creative writing class twice. Miraliz felt Steinbeck's work showed promise, but that he was too wordy. She told him to avoid overly elaborate writing and simply say what he was trying to say. Her straightforward advice resonated with Steinbeck. In a letter to a friend, he wrote, Her only really vicious criticism is directed toward turgidity, and that is a good thing. As Steinbeck's writing improved, Miraliz helped him get two short stories published in the Stanford Spectator literary magazine.

7:34But except for his writing classes, Steinbeck's college career was lackluster. He dropped or failed classes that he had no interest in, and driven by wanderlusts, sometimes disappeared for weeks at a time to work as a farm laborer, ranch hand, or factory worker. Finally, in early 1921, he dropped out of Stanford altogether and returned home to Salinas to the disappointment of his mother. For the next several years, he took on odd jobs, working on a highway construction crew at a sugar plant and as a waiter at a Chinese restaurant. He returned to Stanford, though, in 1923, but finally left for good in early 1925, having never graduated.

8:13He wrote to a friend,

8:20In the summer of 1925, the now 23-year-old Steinbeck was working as a handyman and driver at a resort near Lake Tahoe, but he often felt frustrated at not finding enough time to write. That fall, he decided to move to New York, to be close to the heart of the book publishing industry. There, his sister Beth's husband helped him get a job on the construction crew building Madison Square Garden. The job was difficult and dangerous. Steinbeck even witnessed a co-worker fall to his death. So he was relieved when an uncle landed him with a job as a reporter for the New York American newspaper. But Steinbeck struggled at that job, too.

8:57His editors thought his stories were overwritten, and they fired him. So by the summer of 1926, Steinbeck was nearly broke and decided to return home to Salinas. He'd later say New York City had beaten the pants off me. Later in the fall of that year, Steinbeck found work as a caretaker for a wealthy family's estate on Lake Tahoe. This job gave him plenty of time to write. He revived a story he'd begun at Stanford about the adventures of a 17th-century pirate named Harry Morgan. John sent the first pages to Professor Miraliz, who told him it was beautifully done. So Steinbeck spent the next two years living in a cabin, reworking the story into a novel he called Cup of Gold.

9:37While he was working on the novel, in the summer of 1928, John met Carol and Eidel Henning, sisters vacationing from San Francisco. He and Carol were instantly attracted to each other. And that fall, Steinbeck moved to San Francisco to be closer to her. He was in love. Carol Henning quickly became a trusted reader and editor of John's work. The budding writer was normally prickly about criticism and feedback, but he appreciated Carol's ideas and edits. She typed the manuscript for Cup of Gold, which John sent to a friend in New York who acted as his agent. The friend eventually found an interested publisher who bought the book for$250.

10:15Published in August of 1929, Cup of Gold earned a few positive reviews. Steinbeck knew it wasn't his best work, but he had made him a published author, and that was the important thing. He told a college friend, I know that Cup of Gold is a bad book, but on its shoulders I shall climb to a good book.

10:37Just two months after Cup of Gold hit bookstores in October of 1929, the stock market crashed, triggering the start of the Great Depression. Steinbeck had been borrowing money from his parents, hoping to repay them with royalties from book sales, but Cup of Gold only sold 1 ,500 copies. Not long after, in the fall of 1929, Steinbeck and Carroll moved to Los Angeles, where they got married. Steinbeck's parents sent him$25 a month, but it was never enough. Carroll had a hard time finding work, and Steinbeck considered giving up on writing and going into a trade. Eventually, to save money, the couple left L.A.

11:13and moved back north into Steinbeck's parents' cottage in Pacific Grove, where they could live rent-free. There they met a handsome and charismatic marine biologist named Edward Ricketts, who would become Carroll's employer. He would also have an enormous impact on Steinbeck's future, even after he dealt the couple a financial blow.

11:35Imagine it's February 20th, 1932. You're a marine biologist working in your laboratory near Pacific Grove, California. The lab is on a run-down but lively street that bustles with fishermen, artists, bums, and prostitutes. It's known as Cannery Row, and it pulses with an energy that you love. You look out from your instruments to see Carol, your part-time bookkeeper and assistant. She and her husband have become close friends, so you're not looking forward to the conversation you need to have. Hey, Carol, nice to see you. How are you today? She eyes you warily and takes out a cigarette. I'm fine, but since when do you ask how are you, Carol?

12:11That's not your style. Give me a light, would you? You laugh because she's always been able to see right through you. She takes a drag of her cigarette and exhales impatiently. So what is it? And don't say we're getting another shipment of turtles or snakes or something. No, nothing like that. I'd hate to see what you and John would pull if I had turtles delivered here again. It took me a week to find them all after you two pranksters let them loose. And those stupid palms you stuck to their backs. Oh, they weren't stupid. Well, you defaced turtles, and that should be a crime. But no, what I need to tell you, and I hate to do this, I know you and John need the money, but you're firing me, aren't you?

12:49Well, yes, I'm afraid so, Carol, and I'm so sorry. You watch your friend drop into a chair and take another deep drag on her cigarette. I feel like one of those white rats you feed to the snakes. You pull up a chair. I wouldn't do this if I didn't have to. I know, I'm being dramatic, but after this sort of news, I could use a drink. You got anything? You pull a bottle of bootleg rum from a desk drawer. I do. Are we still friends? Oh, you know we are, silly man. But my husband might have a bone to pick. He was getting used to that fifty bucks a month. Yeah, your husband. How's John's writing going?

13:28Carol turns to you, suddenly serious, and looks you in the eye. She puts down her drink, and it's already empty. You know he loves you, right? I suppose I do. No, no, no, I'm serious. He needs you. He needs you to write. You're like his bearded muse, it seems. Some sort of handsome, womanizing, troublemaking wino of a muse. Carol breaks into a smile. So you're not mad at me for firing you? Oh, of course I am, you imbecile. But you're still good for us. Now pour me another drink. You refill Carol's glass and top off your own. You wish you didn't have to do this, but the depression has really hurt your business.

14:03You just hope Carol does forgive you. And this doesn't damage your relationship with her husband, John, who's become your closest friend.

14:14In the early 1930s, John and Carol Steinbeck settled into married life in his parents' cottage in Pacific Grove. Their circle of friends included scientists, artists, and other young couples amid the canneries and marinas along the waterfront, known as Cannery Row. In 1930, they met the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who hired Carol briefly to work in his lab. Ricketts and Steinbeck became fast friends, drinking buddies, and in time, soulmates. They shared an interest in the natural world and in politics, books, and philosophy. They loved to drink and loved to argue. One friend described them as being like a married couple themselves.

14:51Steinbeck once said that listening to Ricketts' talk was like hearing himself think aloud, only more clearly. Ricketts often threw parties that could last all night and sometimes stretch for days. Prohibition was still in effect, but he and Steinbeck always managed to find a bottle of bootleg whiskey or wine. At one of these parties, Carroll began to flirt with a dashing young man who had recently moved to Pacific Grove. His name was Joseph Campbell, and later he would become a famous author and mythologist, and by June of 1932, he and Carroll were having an affair. Steinbeck eventually confronted Campbell, demanding to know if he was in love with his wife, and in some versions of the story, he threatened Campbell with a gun.

15:32Campbell soon left town, and the affair ended.

15:38Despite the marital and financial hardships of the early 1930s, Steinbeck published two more books, a short story collection, The Pastures of Heaven, and the novel To a God Unknown. Critics would later call The Pastures of Heaven one of Steinbeck's greatest works, but at the time it sold less than a thousand copies. He also published a short story about a boy whose father buys him a pony which later dies. That story, inspired by his own childhood horse, Jill, and two others inspired by his childhood in Salinas, would later be collected into a book called The Red Pony. By this time, Steinbeck was a disciplined and prolific writer, even with the frequent parties and subsequent hangovers.

16:17Every morning, he'd warm up by sharpening two dozen pencils and listening to classical music before starting the day with a few hours of writing. And during this period of prolific writing, his subject matter began to shift, thanks largely to his wife. Although Carol's affair with Campbell had wounded Steinbeck, she also ignited in him a sense of social consciousness. She had empathy for the poor and briefly registered with the Communist Party. Her thinking influenced Steinbeck's worldview and his writing, which would soon ripple with a sense of moral outrage at the hardships and economic injustices of the Depression years.

16:52Steinbeck also began soaking up stories he heard along Cannery Row. While eating lunch at Maria's Diner, he eavesdropped on the neighboring fishermen, prostitutes, and mixed-race farm workers known as paisanos, gathering material for future stories. One of those stories would become his first commercial success. But just as he was about to finally break through as a writer, Steinbeck would face a tragic family loss.

17:21As Americans, we're constantly grappling with the fundamental question. Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we strive to create the world as it should be? Our answers tend to ebb and flow through the decades, But once, just after a war that nearly tore us apart, we came as close as we've come to answering it. And it's a story worth a closer look. I'm Michelle Obama, and I'm proud to announce Higher Ground's new podcast, Reconstruction, The Unfinished Promise. Guided by best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell and featuring my husband, Barack Obama, This limited series uncovers the untold stories of Reconstruction, what they mean for us today, and how our past can shape the future we choose to build.

18:11Reconstruction, the unfinished promise, is available now on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Raza Jaffrey, and in the new season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Benedict Arnold, the spy who betrayed the American Revolution. America is fighting to free itself from the British Empire, and one of its foremost generals is Benedict Arnold. He's a smuggler turned battlefield hero and admired for his aggressive tactics. But when a war wound, a new wife, debts and politics test his loyalty to the mags, he turns spy and devises a plot to shatter the revolution and help Britain capture rebel commander-in-chief General George Washington.

18:58And that plot would make him the most infamous traitor in U.S. history. Follow The Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of The Spy Who Betrayed the American Revolution, early and ad-free on Audible.

19:26In early 1934, John Steinbeck's mother, Olive, died after suffering a stroke. A year later, Steinbeck's father also had a stroke and grew seriously ill. While caring for his father, Steinbeck worked on a new book, writing in frenzied bursts and completing it within months. Tortilla Flat tells the story of a group of jobless paisanos at the end of World War I. His character's adventures were inspired by tales he'd picked up around Salinas. The book was published in May of 1935, just five days after his father's death. The loss of both parents devastated Steinbeck, mostly because neither had lived to see their son's achievements, which now included strong reviews for Tortilla Flat and a$300 advance from the small publisher that released it.

20:13Using that money, Steinbeck and his wife Carol traveled to Mexico, partly in an attempt to salvage their faltering marriage. And while there, Steinbeck received word that Tortilla Flat had become a bestseller. Even better, Paramount Pictures wanted to buy the film rights for$4 ,000. At age 33, Steinbeck finally had his first critical and commercial success.

20:40In early 1936, a year after the success of Tortilla Flat, Steinbeck's fifth novel, In Dubious Battle, was published. It tells a story of striking fruit pickers and their union organizers. The New York Times called it the best labor and strike novel to come out of our contemporary economic and social unrest. Steinbeck's growing reputation as a chronicler of working-class Californians led to more work. Soon after the publication of In Dubious Battle, an editor at the San Francisco News asked Steinbeck to write a series of stories about the refugees pouring into California from Oklahoma and other Midwestern states.

21:16They were fleeing the so-called Dust Bowl, a series of devastating storms that were blowing the topsoil off farmland in the drought-stricken Midwest, rendering it useless. Steinbeck jumped at the assignment. He bought a used bread truck that he converted into a camper, then traveled through central California, visiting workers' camps and collecting stories from the so-called Ogie's. His seven-part newspaper series appeared in October of 1936, titled The Harvest Gypsies. The articles would also provide material for two of Steinbeck's most beloved and enduring books, the first of which was a novella he published in early 1937 called Of Mice and Men.

21:54This story featured George Milton and Lenny Small, two migrant ranch hands on the fringes of society, roaming Central California looking for work. Of Mice and Men displayed Steinbeck's curiosity and empathy for the disenfranchised. The book also soared into the bestseller lists and in a month sold more than 100 ,000 copies. Critics raved, and even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt championed the book. But Of Mice and Men's crude language and violent ending would also be targeted by book banners, even after the film adaptation was nominated for four Academy Awards. With Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck suddenly found himself overwhelmed by the demands of the success he'd worked and longed for.