My own view is that he has written at the two extremes of his art. I’m not convinced that offering solutions are a novelists job. He has been accused of overly sentimentalised depictions of social issues with no real offers of viable answers – offering only problems but no solutions. Steinbeck was to receive a Nobel prize only months after the publishing of, ‘ Charley‘, and it would be fair to say that his popular profile probably outmatched that of his critical stature. This was at the time of the Nixon Kennedy election and in retrospect a significant watershed in American history. After many years of travels in Europe and living in a variety of places including New York Steinbeck decided he needed to reconnect with the people of America and to see what the lay of the land might have become. His travelling companion was a Standard Poodle called Charley who despite an appalling choice of hairstyle proved to be a loyal and wise accomplice. “john-steinbeck-and-charley” by Luiyo is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 Interestingly he says he was never recognised – but as we discover there may be something of an explanation for that. He travelled from Long Island New York to the North West Coast, down to his hometown of Salinas in California across Texas, through the deep south and back to the Big Apple. It was published in 1962 about a trip that took place in 1960 when Steinbeck skirted the borders of the nation in a 10,000 mile trip in a truck cum camper called, ‘ Rocinante’, – after Don Quixote’s horse. In my personal reading and that related to the Paperback Rider articles one book has cropped up a number of times as something of a touchstone for others – ‘ Travels with Charley ’ by John Steinbeck.

Mile after mile, as he retraces Steinbeck's footsteps through the potato fields of Maine to the endless prairies of the Midwest, sits down to eat with farmers, workers, fisherman and teachers, stumbles across glistening suburbs and boarded-up stores, he searches for the roots of America and what remains of the restless, prosperous world Steinbeck describes.Fact, fiction – or an entertaining mix of the two? Half a century on, Geert Mak sets off from Steinbeck's home in his own Rocinante, with his wife and his sat-nav Sandy. As he said to a friend: ‘I must see how the country looks and smells and sounds.' The trip became Travels With Charley, one of his best-loved books. America was looking to the future, full of optimism and desperate to leave behind the troubles of past Steinbeck, great chronicler of the ordinary working man, was starting to feel out of touch. The truck was named Rocinante after Don Quixote's horse, and Steinbeck was Cervantes' foolhardy knight. In 1960 John Steinbeck and his dog Charley set out in their green GMC pickup truck to rediscover the soul of America, visiting small towns and cities from New York to New Orleans.

Travels with charley by john steinbeck