Steinbeck's Uneasy America: Rereading "Travels with Charley"

by Barbara A. Heavilin (Editor), Susan Shillinglaw (Editor), Robert DeMott (Foreword by), Danica Cerce (Contribution by), William P. Childers (Contribution by)

Overview

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780817322199
Publisher:	University of Alabama Press
Publication date:	12/17/2024
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Barbara A. Heavilin is editor-in-chief of the Steinbeck Review. She has written or edited several books on John Steinbeck, most recently Critical Insights: “Of Mice and Men.”

Susan Shillinglawis professor of English emerita at San Jose State University and was director of the university’s Steinbeck Center for eighteen years, as well as director of the National Steinbeck Center from 2015 to 2018. She is author of Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage and her most current work is On Reading “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Foreword: About This Volume by Robert DeMott

Acknowledgments

Part I. A Question of Genre

Chapter 1. Travels with Charley as Autofiction by Jay Parini

Chapter 2. Histories of the Future: Travels with Charley and the Culture of the Cold War by Gavin Jones

Chapter 3. "Travels with Charley": A Mongrel Manuscript by Susan Shillinglaw

Chapter 4. Myth and Observation: The Dual Axes of Travels with Charley by Charles Etheridge

Chapter 5. Steinbeck Laughing: Travels with Charley as American Picaresque by Carter Davis Johnson

Chapter 6. Operation Windmills: Travels with Charley and Don Quixote by William P. Childers

Part II. Travels with Charley as Jeremiad: 1960s America and Today

Chapter 7. Steinbeck and the “Longue Durée” of Deep Time in Travels with Charley by Barbara A. Heavilin

Chapter 8. Of Hurricanes and Hope: Travels with Charley and the Crises of Our Times by Kathleen Hicks

Chapter 9. Travels with John Steinbeck in Search of “True Things” by Brian Railsback

Chapter 10. Travels with Charley as a Space for Cross-Cultural Relationality by Danica Čerče

Part III. Contemplating America: Travels with Charley as Road Text

Chapter 11. John Steinbeck and R. K. Narayan in Search of America by Nicholas P. Taylor

Chapter 12. Inspiring Travels with Charley: John Steinbeck and the Millennial Multitiered Quest by Cecilia Donohue

Chapter 13. “Takin’ on Texas” in Travels with Charley by Mimi R. Gladstein

Chapter 14. Texas Tales and Beyond: A Niece Recalls: Donald V. Coers interviewing Sally Kleberg; Susan Shillinglaw, editor

Works Cited

Contributors

Index

Editorial Reviews

Blurring the line between autobiography and fiction is what this book does with a vengeance. . . [Steinbeck’s Uneasy America] brings new light to the question of the author’s presence.” —Marie-Christine Lemardeley, professor emerita of American literature at Sorbonne Nouvelle University and editor of a collection of four Steinbeck’s novels translated into French

"With several influential voices in the field, this collection will be extremely valuable not only for those studying Travels with Charley but also scholars interested in Steinbeck's approach to writing, his later career, and his evolving views on America." 
—CHOICE 

From the Publisher