Travels with Charley
Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a 1962 travelogue written by American author John Steinbeck. It depicts a 1960 road trip around the United States made by Steinbeck, in the company of his standard poodle Charley. Steinbeck wrote that he was moved by a desire to see his country because he made his living writing about it. He wrote of having many questions going into his journey, the main one being "What are Americans like today?" However, he found that he had concerns about much of the "new America" he saw.
Author
Steinbeck tells of traveling throughout the United States in a specially made camper he named Rocinante, after Don Quixote's horse. His travels start in Long Island, New York, and roughly follow the outer border of the United States, from Maine to the Pacific Northwest, down into his native Salinas Valley in California across to Texas, through the Deep South, and then back to New York. Such a trip encompassed nearly 10,000 miles.
According to Thom Steinbeck, the author's oldest son, the reason for the trip was that Steinbeck knew he was dying and wanted to see his country one last time. The younger Steinbeck has said he was surprised that his stepmother allowed his father to make the trip; his heart condition meant he could have died at any time.[1] A new introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of the book cautioned readers that "it would be a mistake to take this travelogue too literally, as Steinbeck was at heart a novelist."
Best seller[edit]
Travels With Charley was published by the Viking Press in mid-1962,[3] a few months before Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The book reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list (Non-Fiction) on October 21, 1962, where it stayed for one week, replaced by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring on October 28.[4]
In the arts[edit]
In the Steinbeck novel The Pastures of Heaven, one of the characters regards Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes as one of the single greatest works of English literature and eventually names his infant son Robert Louis. Later, Steinbeck and his wife Elaine were inspired by Stevenson in choosing the title Travels with Charley.[5]
In 2010 the Dutch journalist and author Geert Mak traveled the same route Steinbeck had followed, basing himself on the notes from Steinbeck's diary as well as the book. Mak wrote a book about it, called "Reizen zonder John" (translation from Dutch: "Traveling without John"). He reviews American society and comments on the changes he encounters since Steinbeck traveled the same parts of the country.
In 2018 Minnesota-based Bluegrass group Trampled by Turtles released a track entitled "Thank you, John Steinbeck." This track references the book with the lines: "I left in a hurry, my clothes barely buttoned/ And 'Travels With Charley' tucked under my arm."
In 1973 The Beach Boys wrote a song for their Holland album called California Saga a three part song with the following lyrics: [Verse 2]
Have you ever been down Salinas way
Where Steinbeck found the valley?
And he wrote about it the way it was
in his travelin's with Charley
And have you ever walked down through the sycamores
Where the farmhouse used to be?
There, the monarch's autumn journey ends
On a windswept cyprus tree