American History Tellers
Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | John Steinbeck: The Observer | 4
18 Mar 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What inspired John Steinbeck's writing career?
Thank you. Imagine it's a hot July night in 1924. You're a World War I veteran traveling with a crew of itinerant workers heading north from California toward Oregon. You've heard there might be jobs at the lumber mills there. You and your fellow travelers, who proudly call themselves hobos, have made camp for the night near a rail yard north of San Francisco.
You're sipping bootleg whiskey and swapping stories with the other men. And among them is a young college student who says he's dropped out of school to travel and work. He's been scribbling in a notebook as you and the others tell tales of life on the road. Hey, what are you writing in that notebook, kid? Aw, just some notes for a novel I'm working on. A novel?
Yeah, haven't you ever wanted to write a novel? No. Read a few. But write one? No, I don't think so. Well, I don't blame you, really. It's the hardest damn thing in the world. Doesn't seem so hard to me. You just tell folks a story, don't you? Well, that's the thing. I don't have enough stories. And guess what the notebook's for? To collect tales from people I meet.
So far, though, I'm mostly hearing dirty jokes and obvious lies. You like this kid. He seems shy, but also sure of himself. You hand him your flask. Well, what kind of stories are you looking for? The young man takes a sip and then grimaces, handing the flask back. I guess, um, I want a real personal story, a human story.
I'd be willing to pay two dollars for a really believable humanistic story. Humanistic, huh? Well, I got one. Back when I was fourteen, my father died, and I hit the road searching. Searching? Searching for what? My mother. She'd gotten a job as a housekeeper somewhere on the Oregon coast, but the problem was I didn't know where.
I got lost in the farms and fields for four days, wandering around with no food, hardly any water, didn't see a soul. That sounds awful. What happened? Well, here's where it gets interesting. Knowing you've got the kid hooked, you continue your story as he scribbles in his notebook, nodding eagerly to keep you talking.
You want those two dollars, of course, but there's something else that inspires you to open up. Something about this kid that puts you at ease. You kept this story bottled up for years, but now you feel like it will be in good hands. Maybe someday, people out there in the world will get to hear it. You're listening ad-free on Audible.
Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of American History Tellers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers, our history, your story. In 1939, John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, his epic tale of poor migrant workers during the Depression.
The book's social commentary sparked controversy, and it was banned in some cities. But it was also an instant success that solidified his place as one of America's most beloved authors. Steinbeck's 30 books included such classics as Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row and captured the toils of marginalized workers and ordinary Americans.
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Chapter 2: How did The Grapes of Wrath reflect the struggles of its time?
They loved to drink and loved to argue. One friend described them as being like a married couple themselves. Steinbeck once said that listening to Ricketts talk was like hearing himself think aloud, only more clearly. Ricketts often threw parties that could last all night and sometimes stretch for days.
Prohibition was still in effect, but he and Steinbeck always managed to find a bottle of bootleg whiskey or wine. At one of these parties, Carroll began to flirt with a dashing young man who had recently moved to Pacific Grove. His name was Joseph Campbell, and later he would become a famous author and mythologist, and by June of 1932, he and Carroll were having an affair.
Steinbeck eventually confronted Campbell, demanding to know if he was in love with his wife, and in some versions of the story, he threatened Campbell with a gun. Campbell soon left town, and the affair ended. Despite the marital and financial hardships of the early 1930s, Steinbeck published two more books, a short story collection, The Pastures of Heaven, and the novel To a God Unknown.
Critics would later call The Pastures of Heaven one of Steinbeck's greatest works, but at the time it sold less than a thousand copies. He also published a short story about a boy whose father buys him a pony, which later dies. That story, inspired by his own childhood horse Jill, and two others inspired by his childhood in Salinas, would later be collected into a book called The Red Pony.
By this time, Steinbeck was a disciplined and prolific writer, even with the frequent parties and subsequent hangovers. Every morning, he'd warm up by sharpening two dozen pencils and listening to classical music before starting the day with a few hours of writing. And during this period of prolific writing, his subject matter began to shift, thanks largely to his wife.
Although Carol's affair with Campbell had wounded Steinbeck, she also ignited in him a sense of social consciousness. She had empathy for the poor and briefly registered with the Communist Party. Her thinking influenced Steinbeck's worldview and his writing, which would soon ripple with a sense of moral outrage at the hardships and economic injustices of the Depression years.
Steinbeck also began soaking up stories he heard along Cannery Row. While eating lunch at Maria's Diner, he eavesdropped on the neighboring fishermen, prostitutes, and mixed-race farm workers known as paisanos, gathering material for future stories. One of those stories would become his first commercial success.
But just as he was about to finally break through as a writer, Steinbeck would face a tragic family loss. Hello, I'm Matt Ford. And I'm Alice Levine. And we're the hosts of British Scandal. Now, Britain loves a royal scandal. Abdications, affairs, dodgy uncles. We've had the lot. But this series is about two brothers. Raised in palaces bound by tragedy, supposed to be inseparable.
So how did they end up barely speaking? Was it jealousy, the press, the firm? Or was this royal rift always inevitable? This is the story of Harry and Wills and the scandal that split the House of Windsor. Follow British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Audible.
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Chapter 3: What personal challenges did Steinbeck face throughout his life?
While caring for his father, Steinbeck worked on a new book, writing in frenzied bursts and completing it within months. Tortilla Flat tells the story of a group of jobless paisanos at the end of World War I. His characters' adventures were inspired by tales he'd picked up around Salinas. The book was published in May of 1935, just five days after his father's death.
The loss of both parents devastated Steinbeck, mostly because neither had lived to see their son's achievements, which now included strong reviews for Tortilla Flat and a $300 advance from the small publisher that released it. Using that money, Steinbeck and his wife Carol traveled to Mexico, partly in an attempt to salvage their faltering marriage.
And while there, Steinbeck received word that Tortilla Flat had become a bestseller. Even better, Paramount Pictures wanted to buy the film rights for $4,000. At age 33, Steinbeck finally had his first critical and commercial success. In early 1936, a year after the success of Tortilla Flat, Steinbeck's fifth novel, In Dubious Battle, was published.
It tells the story of striking fruit pickers and their union organizers. The New York Times called it the best labor and strike novel to come out of our contemporary economic and social unrest. Steinbeck's growing reputation as a chronicler of working-class Californians led to more work.
Soon after the publication of In Dubious Battle, an editor at the San Francisco News asked Steinbeck to write a series of stories about the refugees pouring into California from Oklahoma and other Midwestern states. They were fleeing the so-called Dust Bowl, a series of devastating storms that were blowing the topsoil off farmland in the drought-stricken Midwest, rendering it useless.
Steinbeck jumped at the assignment. He bought a used bread truck that he converted into a camper, then traveled through Central California, visiting workers' camps and collecting stories from the so-called Ogies. His seven-part newspaper series appeared in October of 1936, titled The Harvest Gypsies.
The articles would also provide material for two of Steinbeck's most beloved and enduring books, the first of which was a novella he published in early 1937 called Of Mice and Men. This story featured George Milton and Lenny Small, two migrant ranch hands on the fringes of society, roaming Central California looking for work.
Of Mice and Men displayed Steinbeck's curiosity and empathy for the disenfranchised. The book also soared into the bestseller lists and in a month sold more than 100,000 copies. Critics raved, and even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt championed the book.
But of Mice and Men's crude language and violent ending would also be targeted by book banners, even after the film adaptation was nominated for four Academy Awards. With Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck suddenly found himself overwhelmed by the demands of the success he'd worked and longed for. Requests poured in for interviews and public appearances. Fans sometimes showed up on his doorstep.
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