America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction

by Steinbeck, John; Shillinglaw, Susan; Benson, Jackson J.

• ISBN13: 9780670030620
• ISBN10: 0670030627
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-02-04
• Publisher: Viking Adult

Summary

There is no writer more quintessentially American than John Steinbeck. More than thirty years after his death, he remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures. Yet his nonfiction-the writings in which he spoke directly about his world-has often been overlooked. Now, Steinbeck's last published book is available again, along with a collection of his finest reportage, including the newspaper articles that inspired his masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath. For thirty years, Steinbeck pursued a parallel career as a journalist, even as he won fame as a novelist. In America and Americans, Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Benson offer a brilliant selection of his finest nonfiction. Here are Steinbeck's writings about Salinas, San Francisco, Monterey, and Sag Harbor; his moral and political commentary; his coverage from the battlefronts of World War II and Vietnam; his literary criticism; and his reflections on friends, Henry Ford, Robert Capa and Ed Ricketts. And most important of all is the primary text, America and Americans-an extended look at the nation he loved and criticized all his life. This remarkable volume offers a portrait of the artist as citizen deeply engaged in the world around him.

Author Biography

John Steinbeck was the author of The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and many other works of fiction and nonfiction. He received the Nobel Prize in 1962 and died in 1968.

Susan Shillinglaw is Director of the Steinbeck Research Center at San Jose State University.

Jackson J. Benson is author of the authorized biography John Steinbeck, Writer, which one the PEN-West U.S.A. Award for nonfiction.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
Places of the Heart	1	(64)
Always Something to Do in Salinas	4	(9)
The Golden Handcuff	13	(4)
A Primer on the '30s	17	(15)
Making of a New Yorker	32	(9)
My War with the Ospreys	41	(9)
Conversation at Sag Harbor	50	(15)
Engaged Artist	65	(52)
Dubious Battle in California	71	(7)
The Harvest Gypsies: Squatters' Camps	78	(5)
Starvation Under the Orange Trees	83	(5)
From Writers Take Sides	88	(1)
I Am a Revolutionary	89	(2)
Duel Without Pistols	91	(10)
The Trial of Arthur Miller	101	(4)
Atque Vale	105	(3)
Dear Adlai	108	(2)
G.O.P. Delegates Have Bigger, Better Badges	110	(2)
L'Envoi	112	(5)
Occasional Pieces	117	(34)
Then My Arm Glassed Up	125	(7)
On Fishing	132	(4)
Circus	136	(3)
Random Thoughts on Random Dogs	139	(3)
...like captured fireflies	142	(2)
The Joan in All of Us	144	(3)
A Model T Named ``It''	147	(4)
On Writing	151	(24)
The Play-Novelette	155	(3)
My Short Novels	158	(3)
Rationale	161	(2)
Critics-from a Writer's Viewpoint	163	(4)
Some Random and Randy Thoughts on Books	167	(5)
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech	172	(3)
Friends	175	(52)
From About Ed Richetts	179	(34)
Ernie Pyle	213	(2)
Tom Collins	215	(2)
Robert Capa	217	(2)
Adlai Stevenson	219	(4)
Henry Fonda	223	(2)
Woody Guthrie	225	(2)
Journalist Abroad	227	(48)
The Soul and Guts of France	233	(13)
One American in Paris (fourth piece)	246	(2)
One American in Paris (thirteenth piece)	248	(3)
Positano	251	(8)
Florence: The Explosion of the Chariot	259	(3)
I Go Back to Ireland	262	(8)
The Ghost of Anthony Daly	270	(5)
War Correspondent	275	(38)
Troopship	282	(3)
Waiting	285	(3)
Stories of the Blitz	288	(3)
Lilli Marlene	291	(2)
Bob Hope	293	(3)
Vietnam War: No Front, No Rear	296	(3)
Action in the Delta	299	(5)
Terrorism	304	(3)
Puff, the Magic Dragon	307	(4)
An Open Letter to Poet Yevtushenko	311	(2)
America and Americans	313	(92)
Foreword	317	(2)
E Pluribus Unum	319	(11)
Paradox and Dream	330	(9)
Government of the People	339	(7)
Created Equal	346	(8)
Genus Americanus	354	(15)
The Pursuit of Happiness	369	(8)
Americans and the Land	377	(6)
Americans and the World	383	(9)
Americans and the Future	392	(11)
Afterword	403	(2)
Works Cited	405	(2)
Selected Bibliography of Steinbeck's Nonfiction	407	(10)
Index	417