Letter from the editor

[AFAR]

Dear reader,

John Steinbeck wrote Travels with Charley: In Search of America—his last full-length novel— as he battled chronic health problems and all the aches and pains that come with old age—in short, he was dying and he knew it. And so the American author set out to reconnect with the spirit of America that he so ardently wrote about in his younger years: He embarked on a 75-day, 10,000-mile journey across the country—with his faithful standard poodle, Charley, by his side. On his self-described Quixotic quest, Steinbeck visited the wilds of Maine, ruminated on the finer points of mobile homes, chatted with a vagabond Shakespearean actor in North Dakota, and revisited his beloved Salinas Valley where so many of his previous novels took place.

However, Travels with Charley is not without controversy. In 2010, Bill Steigerwald, a former reporter for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, wrote a searing exposé on the book. Steigerwald revealed several inconsistencies in Steinbeck’s story. (I mean, what was a Shakespearean actor doing in the boonies of North Dakota?). In addition, Steigerwald discovered that Steinbeck’s wife was also on the trip, that the writer primarily stayed in hotels and wealthy friends’ homes (rather than in his camper van, the Rocinante), and that many of Steinbeck’s iconic conversations with locals were likely fabricated or heavily embellished. But truth, to me, is not central to the spirit of Travels with Charley.

Like his most heralded book, The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck’s last book champions the American everyman and surfaces the beauty in America’s unique communities. In Travels with Charley, Steinbeck takes time to fully-flesh out characters from a group of French-speaking Canadian migrant farm workers to park rangers in Yellowstone National Park to diner waitresses. The literary tableaus of everyday Americans are at once heavily romanticized but more true than any non-fiction account of them could be.

In a time when more Americans are taking domestic vacations than ever before, Travels with Charley serves as an emotional roadmap for navigating all the beautiful and far-flung corners of the country. During this crazy and unpredictable time, I’m sometimes reminded of this Steinbeck quote from The Winter of Our Discontent, “I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.” As I venture out on my own domestic holiday travels, I hope to truly see the wonders of this nation—and the people who inhabit it—as they really are.

Mae Hamilton
Assistant Editor