John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography

By Jackson J. Benson

Book Overview

Drawing on John Steinbeck 's papers and photographs, and scores of interviews, Jackson J. Benson explores the influences that contributed to Steinbeck's archetypal sense of American culture and his controversial concerns. An in-depth study of the shy, private individual behind many American classics.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 014014417X
• ISBN13: 9780140144178
• Release Date: December 1990
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 1184 Pages
• Weight: 2.07 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.3" x 5.6" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

a great bio

I've read a few Steinbeck biographies and this one is my favorite. There is a ton of information in this brick of a book, and it took me a year to get through it (I read slow). Benson does a great job covering Steinbeck's childhood, his years at Stanford, his lousy jobs, his apprenticeship as a writer, and his perseverance and eventual publication (which still left him in dire financial straits). The second half of the biography, where John moves to NYC, shows a different side of the man as he ventures away from his native California and obtains literary success. He does more traveling, marries for a second time, and contemplates writing his "big book" (East of Eden). My favorite part of the book was its references to Steinbeck's writing habits. He was a very solitary man who was obsessive about writing everyday (his friends were often puzzled about why he was so selfish with his time). Also, he strove for simplicity in his stories (there was no showboating in the man or his work) and he tried to craft voice through a simple, parsed-down style. This biography is very big, and the reader may get caught up in a different issue, storyline, or period of John's life. What facinated me, however, was John's writing habits and how he fought off doubt, depression, and writer's block. This biography was loaded with lots of information about the writing life (it's as good, if not better, than the Paris Review interviews). Steinbeck is my favorite writer and if it wasn't for him I probably wouldn't write fiction. I enjoy reading about him, almost as much as I enjoy reading his books. Also recommended: The Gospel of Arnie

A Wonderful Biography

When I was in eighth grade (which was 1984!), I insisted my father buy me this book. I was (and am) a Steinbeck nut. I read this book in bits and pieces for years and years--dipping into it from time to time. Eventually I did sit down and read the whole thing--wonderful, truly wonderful. A long book, yes, but only because it tells such a wonderful life and in such incredible detail. The research is impeccable; the story-telling riveting; the detail is magnificent. Someone once told me to make my life a work of art. Steinbeck did this with his life--as did Mr. Benson here. If you like Steinbeck and would like to know more, read this. Even if you just want a fascinating story, read this--a wonderful ride from the early part of the century, to the Great Depression to the tumult of the 1960's--it is all here, through the ideas of a great biographer and a great subject.

Want to know Steinbeck? Start here!

For my doctoral research, which involves the history of coastal California, I wanted one big, clearly written book that was solidly put together but not clogged with footnotes. I found it here. Fifteen years of research, some of it with friends and relatives of Steinbeck's, went into this biography, which reads like a straight-up narrative of the writer's adventurous life. Though long, it reads quickly, devoid of academic jargon. Highly recommended.

An epic, entertaining biography

John Steinbeck once considered writing an autobiography, and it's a shame the Nobel prize winner never lived to do it. Mr. Steinbeck's letters and journals blaze with sharp and honest introspection, keen insight into human behavior and empathy. It's certain that an autobiography would have been a classic. So, instead, we rely on those who write biographies to chronicle the life of one of America's great writers. There have been several Steinbeck biographies and many of those have been well done. But Jackson J. Benson's version, titled simply "John Steinbeck, Writer", is the definitive one - over 1,000 pages of readable and compelling material that follows the writer's life from his Huck Finn childhood in Salinas, California, to the success of his novels and the failures of his marriages in midlife, and finally to domestic bliss mixed with pain from pretentious critics whose stones and arrows he could not duck and would not ignore in his later years.The ability to wrestle the massive amount of research that this work involved into a book that anyone can enjoy is an achievement that amazes. It's the next best thing to the autobiography that never was.

A seamless portrait of a flawed, but always honest, man

Wow. I don't consider myself much of a biography reader, but I bought this book online because I wanted to learn more about Steinbeck, in hopes of rejuicing my own novel writing ambitions. Benson amazes me: How in the world he was able to collect, collate and present such a detailed portrait, I'll never know. Steinbeck, as presented here, is most admirable for his steadfast refusal to allow "celebrity" to become a roadblock to his only real ambition, to be a writer.Not all of Steinbeck's work succeeds, as the author himself would have admitted, but he remained ever true to himself as a writer.Benson is merely brilliant. Time to pick up that Carlos Baker Hemingway bio now? Maybe so....