FROM STEINBECK’S The Acts of King Arthur: “In considering a man about whom there are few and sparse records, there are three directions one may take to build up some kind of reality about him—His work (the most important). His times (important because he grew out of them) and finally his associates or people with whom he may have associated.”
The records of Steinbeck’s life are neither few nor sparse, but his advice is sound for any biographer. Steinbeck’s work, read in chronological order of composition, shows his growth as a writer and as a man; his letters were especially important to this biography, as was his journalism.
The part Steinbeck played in his times is a matter of public record, and the newspaper and magazine accounts of Steinbeck still make fascinating reading.
Formal biographies consulted include the following:
Professor Jackson J. Benson’s The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer (New York: The Viking Press, 1984). This is among the largest and most comprehensive accounts ever written of the life of a novelist. In more than one thousand pages, Professor Benson displays a stunning range of research, along with an idiosyncratic but effective approach to organization. Wisely in a biography of such length, Professor Benson employs a relaxed and in some places almost colloquial style. His biography deals in far greater length than was available here with the years of frustration Steinbeck experienced after the completion of East of Eden. Throughout the biography, Professor Benson reveals his deep sympathy for Steinbeck. In those places where his interpretation is arguable, Benson’s clear thinking and careful consideration impose the same demands upon dissenters. This book will prove invaluable to all readers of Steinbeck, as well as irreplaceable for all subsequent biographers.
A far shorter and less trustworthy guide is Thomas Kiernan’s The Intricate Music: A Biography of John Steinbeck (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1979). Kiernan begins his book by relaying the disappointment he felt upon meeting Steinbeck in the 1950s. That disappointment is mirrored in Kiernan’s account of Steinbeck’s career. Kiernan toes the academic line pretty carefully, presenting most of Steinbeck’s works after The Grapes of Wrath as failures. The Intricate Music is even more brief in its treatment of the final sixteen years of Steinbeck’s life than is the present biography.
Richard Astro’s John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1973) is perhaps as much critical study as biography, but because of the special focus of the work, I include it in this section of the references. The book is a thorough and intelligent examination of the relationship between Steinbeck and Ricketts and is filled with fascinating material about Ricketts’s extraordinary life.
Equally specialized is Thomas Fensch’s Steinbeck and Covici: The Story of a Friendship (Middlebury, Vermont: Paul S. Eriksson, 1979). Fensch draws upon a great deal of correspondence to produce a close look at the relationship between Steinbeck and his editor. This brief volume offers insight not only into Steinbeck and Covici, but also into the nature of American publishing during the years in which John Steinbeck was one of the industry’s great stars.