John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (1962), recounting his trip across the United States with his dog in a custom-made camper, was enormously popular. The book's many readers liked his anecdotal sentimentality. The dog with the crossed front teeth and bourgeois name made poodlehood forgivable, and the author avoided profound criticism of the country, lacing his account with vivid descriptions of the landscape and a variety of American characters. Travels is a collage that millions of Americans found to be pleasant, casual reading….

Though Travels is one of [Steinbeck's] potboilers, ignoring it is a critical mistake, for both the circumstances surrounding its composition and its content and structure reveal much about Steinbeck as a writer. Travels was written during a transitional period in Steinbeck's later life when he was attempting not only to face the specter of decline but to accept his limitations as a writer. (p. 186)

Travels with Charley...