Synopses & Reviews
Carol Henning Steinbeck, writer John Steinbeckandrsquo;s first wife, was his creative anchor, the inspiration for his great work of the 1930s, culminating in The Grapes of Wrath. Meeting at Lake Tahoe in 1928, their attachment was immediate, their personalities meshing in creative synergy. Carol was unconventional, artistic, and compelling. In the formative years of Steinbeckandrsquo;s career, living in San Francisco, Pacific Grove, Los Gatos, and Monterey, their Modernist circle included Ed Ricketts, Joseph Campbell, and Lincoln Steffens. In many ways Carolandrsquo;s story is all too familiar: a creative and intelligent woman subsumes her own life and work into that of her husband. Together, they brought forth one of the enduring novels of the 20th century.and#160;
Review
A fascinating story that needs to be made known widely . . . Not just the story of Carol and her relationship to John, but a new and revealing look at Steinbeck himself. So much is new here, and the manuscript pushes so deep into the lives of the Steinbecks, that it might well become the primary biography of that period.” --Jackson Benson, author of John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography
Review
"Shillinglaw's primary research makes this book impressive, and her writing is wonderfully clear and effective. A book that will appeal both to sophisticated scholars and the general public. I loved this book!" Melody Graulich, editor of Western American Literature
Review
Scholars and fans of John Steinbeck are fortunate to have two fine biographies availableJackson Bensons (1990) and Jay Parinis (1995). The former is huge and exhaustive in detail and anecdote; the latter, while more concise, is more prone to literary critical conjecture and interpretation. Both are well researched and deftly written. And now another indispensable source can be placed beside these classics, Susan Shillinglaws
Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage published by the University of Nevada Press.
Framing a biography around a couple for the duration of their marriage appealed to me conceptually, and the book proved as fascinating in the reading as in the idea. For one thing, it is informed by Shillinglaws deep knowledge of her subject. A professor of English at San Jose State University, she was the director of the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies for almost twenty years. So she brings to this project an intimate familiarity with a wealth of resourcesunpublished letters, diaries, interviews, and manuscriptsthat she encountered while at that post. She uses these primary sources to construct a portrait that gives us much new information about Steinbecks life, including many entertaining anecdotes and stories. But more importantly, for this reviewer at least, I believe she changes how this period of his life and work should be viewed.
Using the ancient warfare analogy of the phalanx, in which soldiers moved together in battle as one entity, she demonstrates that the convergence of John and Carol, and also Ed Ricketts, Joseph Campbell, and others in their circle, created an environment and a feedback system that greatly enabled and supported Steinbeck as he created his great works of the 1930s. Together, the group was more than the sum of its parts. It provided a setting for informed, engaging conversation about biology, ecology, politics, mythology, and eastern religion; it was a scene” of fun, drinking, and excess that flaunted the bourgeois values that surrounded them; and most importantly it provided feedback and criticism that Steinbeck needed as a developing writer but seldom received. Fittingly, the phalanx analogy itself was one that this creative ensemble came up with and developed to explore the herd” versus rugged individual” dichotomy that was such a central social issue of the times.
While the entire group gets the attention it deserves, the focus is squarely on John Ernst Steinbeck and Carol Janella Henning and the unit they became from the moment they met in 1928. Raised in an uptight religious family, Carol rebelled strongly. By the time they met (when she was 23), she was a perfect fit for 26-year-old John. As Shillinglaw puts it She was a poster child for the decade: she smoked freely, swore energetically, and set her own rules. She bought a car. Like John, she could toss down her liquor
.” They jumped headlong into their relationship, married in early 1930, and she immediately made his writing career their mutual life project.
The chapter titles give an idea of the sweep of the book(1) Renegades, (2) Make It New: Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, and Eagle Rock, (3) Home in Pacific Grove, (4) At Ed Ricketts Lab, (5) Wave Shock 1932-35, (6) Viva Mexico!”, (7) California is A Bomb Right Now
Highly Explosive”: Writing The Grapes of Wrath, (8) Enter Gwynn Conger, (9) On the Sea of Cortez, and (10) A Life in Fragments. I dont need to rehearse Steinbecks overall biography here because readers of this journal know it. But I do think Shillinglaws concentration on the John-Carol relationship changes how we think about what we already know of that biography. They were the center of a whirlwind of friends, fun, and creativity; then they were isolated as Johns mother and father sickened and died; then they shifted focus from the valley of Johns childhood to the larger political and economic crisis situation in California; and then, with that shift, he [they] hit a stride of literary achievement that made him a national celebrity. The cliché of fame spoiling the marriage, complete with a Hollywood starlet, applies to the next phase of the story. And finally Shillinglaw lets us know about Carols life after John.
In reading this book, I came to see how deeply essential Carol was in the transformation of John Steinbeck from a California regional writer to a major national figure. While he provided the writing skill, she provided major critical/editorial input, fierce willpower, and to an extent, even the larger vision of what could be achieved socially and politically in their particular time and place. She was his total partner in everything he accomplished in the 1930s. I was not a frustrated artist, repressed by her husband. Dont see me that way,” she said in an interview later in her life. She typed manuscripts [a daunting task given Steinbecks tiny, cramped cursive handwriting]; she copy edited drafts; and she proposed large-scale additions and corrections to plots, characters, tonalities, and themes. Notably, she named both Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. And most significantly, she micro-managed his shift in focus to the larger socio-economic crises of the Great Depression, a shift Shillinglaw terms roots to routes.” Shillinglaw notes that during the grueling months of the writing of The Grapes of Wrath, his letters and journals consistently used we” in describing the work he was undertaking. Weve gone on the disciplinary system in which we work” he told Pascal Covici in the spring of 1937. As he said in the dedication of that book, Carol willed it.”
I finished the book wondering how different Steinbecks work might have been if the couple had stayed together. With forceful, candid feedback, Steinbeck might have dropped the authors message” Timshel ending of East of Eden; he might have traveled with Charley to Berkeley or the Watts ghetto to see what was really happening in the early 1960s; and he might have decided to forgo The Short Reign of Pippin IV altogether. Of course, that didnt happen and his career went the way it went. But Professor Shillinglaws terrific book did make me think that Carol, to some extent, should have shared the credit for her ex-husbands Nobel Prize. The work he did with her as a we” was clearly his greatest.
Tom Barden, The Steinbeck Review, Fall 2013
Review
As portrayed by San Jose State University English professor and Steinbeck expert Shillinglaw (A Journey into Steinbeck's California), John Steinbeck's first wife, Carol Henning Steinbeck, was witty, gifted, and fiercely practical. In addition, she loved the limelight and was adept at grand gesture. Her husband, though driven, tended to be moody and self-absorbed. Carol, according to this impressive biography, was also the driving force behind John's political conscience, and assisted him with The Grapes of Wrath ("To Carol who willed it," the dedication reads in part). But the wealth and fame brought by the novel's success also brought disappointment, estrangement, and divorce. "In another era," Shillinglaw writes with eloquence and grace, "[Carol] might have run a small company, shaped something larger than John into a force for good but she could not or would not imagine great things for herself." In later life, Carol Steinbeck took offense at comparisons to Zelda Fitzgerald, but like Zelda, she has been blessed with a terrific biographer. Publishers Weekly, Sept. 16, 2013
Review
"Shillinglaw contends the Pulitzer Prizeand#150;winning Grapes of Wrath is their 'shared creation.' She argues that Carol was a much larger influence on the novelistand#8217;s life and work than has been previously acknowledged. In this lively, absorbing biography, she describes Johnand#8217;s and Caroland#8217;s families, the impact of friends and travel, and the creative process that culminated in Johnand#8217;s writing. Carol left few written records or letters, thus her life is portrayed here from previously unavailable scrapbooks, photographs, and poetry. . . . Recommended for Steinbeck enthusiasts as well as readers interested in 20th-century American novelists." Library Journal, Nov. 13, 2013
Review
"Impressive . . . Shillinglaw writes with eloquence and grace. . . . Carol Steinbeck . . . has been blessed with a terrific biographer." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Scholars and fans of John Steinbeck are fortunate to have two fine biographies availableJackson Bensons (1990) and Jay Parinis (1995). . . . And now another indispensable source can be placed beside these classics, Susan Shillinglaws
Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage published by the University of Nevada Press.
"[Shillinglaw] brings to this project an intimate familiarity with a wealth of resourcesunpublished letters, diaries, interviews, and manuscripts . . . she uses these primary sources to construct a portrait that gives us much new information about Steinbecks life, including many entertaining anecdotes and stories. But more importantly, for this reviewer at least, I believe she changes how this period of his life and work should be viewed.
"Raised in an uptight religious family, Carol rebelled strongly. By the time they met (when she was 23), she was a perfect fit for 26-year-old John. As Shillinglaw puts it : 'She was a poster child for the decade: she smoked freely, swore energetically, and set her own rules. She bought a car. Like John, she could toss down her liquor
.'
"Shillinglaws concentration on the John-Carol relationship changes how we think about what we already know . . . They were the center of a whirlwind of friends, fun, and creativity; then they were isolated as Johns mother and father sickened and died; then they shifted focus from the valley of Johns childhood to the larger political and economic crisis situation in California; and then, with that shift, he [they] hit a stride of literary achievement that made him a national celebrity. The cliché of fame spoiling the marriage, complete with a Hollywood starlet, applies to the next phase of the story. And finally Shillinglaw lets us know about Carols life after John.
"I finished the book wondering how different Steinbecks work might have been if the couple had stayed together. With forceful, candid feedback, Steinbeck . . . might have traveled with Charley to Berkeley or the Watts ghetto to see what was really happening in the early 1960s . . . Of course, that didnt happen and his career went the way it went. But Professor Shillinglaws terrific book did make me think that Carol, to some extent, should have shared the credit for her ex-husbands Nobel Prize. The work he did with her as a 'we' was clearly his greatest."
Tom Barden, The Steinbeck Review, Fall 2013
Review
"Nobody knows more or writes better about the life of Steinbeck than Susan Shillinglaw . . . Her superb scholarship and elegant style are equally evident in Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage, the biography of Steinbeck?s marriage to Carol Henning, a Jazz Age rebel with a Great Depression conscience. As Shillinglaw observes, John and Carol were no Scott and Zelda. But their dramatic story book reads like a novel?unfortunately, one with a similarly unhappy ending." William Ray, Steinbeck Now
Review
"Fascinating as it lays open the background of two intriguing personalities" New York Journal of Books
Synopsis
In Steinbeck’s formative years, she was his mainstay, his partner, his inspiration
Synopsis
In Steinbeckandrsquo;s formative years, she was his mainstay, his partner, his inspirationand#160;
About the Author
Susan Shillinglaw, professor of English at San Jose State University, directed the Center for Steinbeck Studies there from 1987 to 2005. Her published works include A Journey Into Steinbeckandrsquo;s California and introductions to The Portable Steinbeck and other Penguin Classic editions. She is currently scholar in residence at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas and lives in Pacific Grove, CA.and#160;