Facing his own mortality and a sense that the country had changed while he wasn't paying attention, John Steinbeck set out to travel America with his standard poodle, Charley. The result is a memorable travelogue that dissects the author's feelings about the degradation of the environment and overall morality coursing through the veins of a new nation.
"There seemed to be no cure for loneliness save only being alone."
Much consternation has been made about the truthfulness of Steinbeck's account, and it's overtly apparent that many dialogues and episodes are made up. He has improbable conversations with fairly wooden characters and uses Charley as a stand-in to monologue about what he thinks he's learning.
A harrowing trip through the deep South near the end of his journeys paints the overall experience in depressing and somber tones.
"I faced the South with dread. Here, I knew, were pain and confusion and all the manic results of bewilderment and fear. And then South being a limb of the nation, its pain spreads out to all America."
"Beyond my failings as a racist, I knew I was not wanted in the South. When people are engaged in something they are not proud of, they do not welcome witnesses. In fact, they come to believe the witness causes the trouble."
Over the course of some 10,000 miles, Steinbeck reckons with an America at war with itself, serving up prescient warnings that -- some 60 years later -- ring frighteningly true.
"I do know this -- the big and mysterious America is bigger than I thought. And more mysterious."
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