John Steinbeck

In the fall of 1960 when John Steinbeck is 58 years old, he decides that if he is going to take a cross-country tour of the United States, he had better do it now before he grows too old to do it at all. A successful writer, he loads his camper truck with the materials of his trade—typewriter, reams of typing paper and carbons, reference books and many of the books he has always intended to read, most of which he never opens. Along with his dog Charley, the author takes off on his trip after Hurricane Dona moves through his home on the tip of Long Island.

His travels take him upwards into the northernmost county of Maine, across to Niagara Falls, over to Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota, down to the Bad Lands of South Dakota, into Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California. Of all...