Steinbeck and Charley are chasing me

John Steinbeck, his best-seller 'Travels With Charley' and I have a hate-love relationship. Apparently, it has to do with 'Dogging Steinbeck,' the book I wrote to expose his fictions & lies.

Steinbeck and Charley have come back to bite me.

A smart young writer/editor/book nut of 48 I met 24 years ago named Joel Miller has done a superb write up of me and my Steinbeckian exploits for his wise substack Millers Book Review.

Joel interviewed me (asked me email questions), I wrote the answers and he edited everything to make me look like a reasonably sane and competent ex-journalist. It was the hardest essay test I ever took but he did a perfect job.

Another nice guy, Thomas Jefferson re-enactor and historian Clay Jenkinson of North Dakota, who's been in one or two Ken Burns docs, is retracing Steinbeck's 1960 'Charley' trip right now and is halfway through his 11,000 mile road trip.

He stopped to interview me in May on his way to Sag Harbor, NY. We have a hate/love relationship when it comes to the veracity and value of John Steinbeck.

Clay (fondly) calls me ‘a Steinbeck detractor’ but he acknowledges that I did good investigative work that no Steinbeck scholar can ever ignore. Here’s his fresh essay.

Speaking of those scholars who did so little to help me when I wrote my Steinbeck expose ‘Dogging Steinbeck,’ a book I instigated with my troublemaking 12 (!) years ago is coming out from the U of Alabama Press in December called 'Steinbeck's Uneasy America: Rereading 'Travels With Charley.'

A dozen or so scholars have written essays. I am the pinata, I'm told, but I have yet to see what they've written.

Here is the series of short videos that I shot during my 2010 trip around the USA chasing John Steinbeck’s ghost. Here’s more.