Rare Books
"Twenty years -- in the twentieth century -- are a long time, and for twenty years John Steinbeck has been occupied in writing about America, while America changed. He felt that he might have lost touch with this monster country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley, and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck equipped with miniature ship's cabin and named Rocinante. His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Middle West to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birth place, Salines; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the least leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York. Again, as always, Steinbeck's concern was with the people. As the small villages, the vast spaces, towering mountains, and laughing meadows unrolled before the indomitable Rocinante, her owner, aided and cheered by Charley, looked for the American identity. It is exact and provable, he decided. It triumphs over sectional difference, over geography, temperament, and dialect. 'From start to finish I found no strangers. ... These are my people and this is my country.' Never before have people and country been examined and reported with so much love combined with so much critical insight"--Dust jacket.
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