Susan Shillinglaw – författare

The first scholarly assessment of Steinbeck’s bestselling travelogue Travels with Charley, published in 1962, a narrative that blurs the lines between nonfiction and fiction.

The effect of Steinbeck's preoccupation with ecology and marine biology on his writings.

As a writer who, beginning in the 1930s, gave voice to the ordinary man and woman, Steinbeck came to be the conscience of America. He witnessed and recorded with clarity much of the political and social upheaval of the 20th century: the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, Vietnam. Yet his place in the literary canon of American literature has been much debated and often dismissed by academics. Beyond Boundaries challenges that dismissal and replaces it with a fuller, more nuanced and international appreciation of the popular Nobel laureate and his works.Topics treated in these wide-ranging essays include the historical and literary contexts and the artistic influence of the eminent novelist; the reception and translation of Steinbeck works outside the United States; Steinbeck's worldview, his social vision, and his treatment of poverty, of self, and of patriotism; influence on Native American writers; the centrality of the archetypal feminine throughout his fiction; and the author's lifelong interest in science and philosophy.Truly international in scope, this timely study reevaluates the enduring and evolving legacy of one of America's most significant writers.

The first critical anthology devoted solely to Travels with Charley.

From one of the foremost scholars on the subject, comes our most in-depth look at John Steinbeck as a writer deeply connected to the natural world. Among the many reasons that John Steinbeck has ascended to the highest tier of the American Literary Canon is his championing of the working man. What we don’t often consider, however, is that his vision as a writer was fundamentally ecological, looking at man and nature holistically. To understand people, you had to know something about the trees and flowers they planted, the soil they tilled, the geography that shaped their consciousness—the animating spirit of place. Steinbeck's Landscapes highlights the environments that the Noble Prize winning author cherished and explored throughout his life and career, and examines the iconic stories those rivers, valleys, plants, animals, and weather patterns inspired. The result is a new and fuller understanding of Steinbeck’s work, and how nature serves to reflect, cast a harsh light upon, or magnify the action. As this fully illustrated treasure shows, for Steinbeck, the world around us fundamentally shapes human experience and the human spirit. All life is connected.

Carol Henning Steinbeck, writer John Steinbeck's first wife, was his creative anchor, the inspiration for his great work of the 1930s, culminating in The Grapes of Wrath. Meeting at Lake Tahoe in 1928, their attachment was immediate, their personalities meshing in creative synergy. Carol was unconventional, artistic, and compelling. In the formative years of Steinbeck's career, living in San Francisco, Pacific Grove, Los Gatos, and Monterey, their Modernist circle included Ed Ricketts, Joseph Campbell, and Lincoln Steffens. In many ways Carol's story is all too familiar: a creative and intelligent woman subsumes her own life and work into that of her husband. Together, they brought forth one of the enduring novels of the 20th century.