On reading The Grapes of Wrath on its 75th anniversary

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When I was a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University in 2007-8, I used to drive my rattletrap of a car back and forth between San Jose and San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood with The Grapes of Wrath audiobook playing on my CD player. 

I listened to the book twice in a row, all 21 hours and five minutes of it in 42 installments. As the story unfolded, I projected the action onto the land in front of me. While an amoral used-car salesman ripped off desperate “Okies” on their way to California, my own jalopy leaked oil on Highway 280. When Noah Joad disappeared, I imagined him lost in the foothills above Palo Alto. Twice in a row the lapsed preacher John Casy got his head bashed by thug cops while I crossed Church and 22^nd Street in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” Casy said to his tormentors as I found myself trapped behind a stalled-out streetcar. To this day, that upscale neighborhood feels like a tragic place; the taint never fades. Never mind that The Grapes of Wrath took place worlds away, in the San Joaquin Valley.

To me, Steinbeck’s writing, at its best, is a lived experience. It doesn’t matter when or where you read or hear it. No matter how many times I revisit Grapes, I fool myself into thinking the Joads will find what they need in California.  John Casy will survive his confrontation with the police. The heartache and disappointment feel fresh every time. So does the shock of the book’s final image. 

Steinbeck believed in slow writing. It takes forever to get to California. We live through every mile with the Joads and their touring car, overstuffed with belongings and people and always on the verge of breakdown.

To mark the 75^th anniversary of The Grapes of Wrath, I got back in touch with my former colleagues at SJSU, including Paul Douglass, an English and American literature professor, and director of the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies. “When I think of The Grapes of Wrath, I think of the remarkable way in which it embodies the agony and transcendence of its era,” he told me. “The dirt poor down low life of the transient population, uprooted and outcast, and yet at the same time, the luminosity of the human spirit revealed through the pressure of poverty and desperation.” I had a longer conversation with Shillinglaw, a recent President’s Scholar Award honoree, and a longtime professor of English and comparative literature at SJSU. She marked the 75^th anniversary with her new book, On Reading the Grapes of Wrath (Penguin, $14.) Shillinglaw sat down with Catamaran to talk about the origins of The Grapes of Wrath and the reason it continues to enchant, infuriate and inspire generations of readers.   

Read about our conversation in the latest issue of Catamaran, now available at a bookstore near you.

coming soon from Catamaran Literary Reader: Beyond Wild: Gail Storey and Aspen Matis face the wilderness on the Pacific Crest Trail

Coming soon from Catamaran Literary Reader at a bookstore or mailbox near you: the forthcoming issue of our magazine includes my brief essay on women facing the wilderness on the Pacific Crest Trail, with a detailed Q & A with Gail Storey and Aspen Matis and with prominent mentions of Cheryl Strayed and Suzanne Roberts. There is no online version of the magazine at this time but you can find out where to buy it and how to describe by visiting us here.  Also, please get your hands on the current issue of Catamaran, which is another great one, with contributions from Paul Muldoon, an overlooked piece of writing from John Steinbeck, new work from Ursula K Le Guin and Nathaniel Mackey and my interview with Susan Shillinglaw about the 75th anniversary of The Grapes of Wrath's publication. I hope you're all having a good summer and I'll see you out in the mountains.

My Cactuseaters Blog Tour

                               


Thank you to my friend Samuel Autman for asking me to participate in the Blog Tour, in which a group of writers talk about their latest projects and share a few words about their writing process. So here I am, taking part and passing it on. Read here about Samuel's writing process. Here goes:

1. What are you working on? For the last couple of years I have been working on a book that is now under contract with Henry Holt & Company. The working title is Soaked to the Bone. It is an embodied history of American camping, meaning that I must participate -- enthusiastically, and sometimes dangerously -- in every form of camping I write about. I am using a combination of research and history and my own adventures to tell the story of recreational camping's evolution from the late 1860s to the present day. Along the way I explore the world of glamping, survivalist camping, Leave No Trace practices and RV snow birding, among others.  There will be a few outrageous scenarios and a blend of comedy and weirdness, ecology, adventure, and contemplation.

2.  How does your work differ from others’ work in the same genre? I have an 'all in' approach. I try very hard to be honest and candid in a way that serves the story and cuts to the truth of the situation. I try not to worry too much about having a narrative voice that is 100 percent cuddly and likable all the time. I think some of the strength of the work lies in my candor, my willingness to 'go there' and not flinch. 

3. Why do you write what I do? I'm a fairly shy person -- depending on the situation -- and kind of a bookworm, so travel writing gives me a license to see the world, while my Olympus recorder and writing pads and pens give me a new identity that makes me feel more comfortable cold-calling people or walking up to them at campsites and taking down their stories, finding out about their camping process, and asking all sorts of pesky questions that would be hard to ask if I didn't have a project and a mission as an excuse. Writing really is a way for me to engage with life. Every so often i hear people gripe that certain writers seem to live through something just so they can write about it. A few people even said that to me after my first book, The Cactus Eaters, came out. That may be true for some writers, but what about the rest of us who write about something just so we can live through it? 

4. How does your writing process work? I have a gargantuan Word file that serves as a kind of rolling scroll or possibilities bag. I just shoehorn bits of research and daily thoughts in there, and i have other files with saved Proquest documents and database files, with notes riffing on them, and separate folders for interviews.  In the early phases, I imagine my process as a great big dredging net, dragging the ocean floor. I just try to spread the net as widely as possible. At some point when I feel I have sufficient 'stuff' -- enough recollections, enough interviews and context -- i start creating a separate file, and I start roughing out a structure. Sometimes I'll create a summarized version of the text -- a kind of short- story version -- and rough it out from the best stuff I've recovered from the Monster File. I never, ever get it right the first time. My first drafts are embarrassing -- horrible. 

I have invited a couple of great folks to participate in the Blog Tour. I hope you hear from them soon! 

Battered scuzzy copies of the Cactus Eaters ...

Lately I've signed some seriously scary copies of my book. A few of them looked like somebody dropped them in a lake, rolled them down a hill, or cleaned their showers with them.  I signed them anyways. I am willing to sign anything except for a blank check. In other news, I'm heading to the Hoh rainforest very soon to spend time with the bugling elk and write about "quiet camping" for my new book. Also, thank you for your continued support of my first book. It keeps creeping along, slowly, inexorably, like a slimy but determined hermit crab at the bottom of the ocean.

Twenty years ago this week ...

... I prepped for the Pacific Crest Trail by baking boatloads of granola. Oh to be young & dunderheaded again. On that fateful week, I baked dozens of batches of appalling, inedible granola to take with me on the Pacific Crest Trail. Every time I stopped at a new trail destination, another enormous baggie  awaited me, spoiled cashews, burned oats, and all. Tehachapi? I opened up my supply box and out came a baggie of home-baked granola cinders. Kennedy Meadows? A mountain of scorched granola awaited me once again. The overwhelming bulk of it wound up in the "free pile." So if you're evem thinking of hiking the PCT right now, do me a favor and taste test everything before you ship it to yourself. And avoid sending perishable stuff with nuts that will turn  rancid and sour on you or buttered oats that will grow blue fuzzy stuff by the time you get to eat them.  Your taste buds will thank you. 

My recipe for coconut macaroons (minus the dead-skin texture that makes most macaroons so disgusting to eat.)

Here is my recipe, which appears this week in Bay Area Parent. I hope you like this. I had some good success with it this week.

In light of my new camping book project, here is my list of backcountry survival tips (corrected version, with new information supplied by Mossberg enthusiast.)

NEVER bring a fondue maker into the woods with you. The bread crumbs, fruit wedges, gas and molten cheese will form a white magma that will spew all over you, leaving fourth-degree burns all over your entire body.

NEVER cook a meal while sitting inside your tent, even when it’s raining outside. (Trust me. Your tent will explode.)

NEVER forget that “freeze-dried’’ and “chili’’ is a very bad combination. (Trust me. You will explode.)

NEVER try to reason with anyone riding an All-Terrain Vehicle --- especially if he or she is drunk and holding a 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun and wearing a knit cap that says "I Like Big Jugs.''

NEVER try to make your girlfriend, or boyfriend, hike faster by calling out a military cadence in a fake Southern accent. ("Sound off, sound off, one, two, three, foe!")

NEVER attempt to brush your teeth in total darkness. Preparation H does not fight gum recession. And it tastes fishy.

NEVER bring artisan-quality cheddar cheese into the Mojave Desert with you in mid-June. A horrid white pus will extrude from the cheese, and you will vomit.

NEVER set up your tent in the middle of a mule trail in the North Cascades. Brighty, Big Snort and Old Thunder will trample you to death in your sleep.

NEVER underestimate the amount of toilet paper you will use in the backcountry. Sticks and stones won't break your bones but they will leave nicks and abrasions on your derriere.)

NEVER camp at a suspiciously beautiful, yet strangely empty, lakeside campsite. It is probably empty for very good reasons (think “flood plain,’’ “poisoned water’’ and “spaniel-sized mosquitoes.’’)

NEVER eat the freeze-dried stroganoff. It has been mummified and sealed away for good reason.

NEVER cut the handles off the toothbrush “to save pack weight.’’ Toothbrushes weigh less than an ounce – and if you try to brush your teeth with the head of a toothbrush, it will fall down your throat and lodge in your trachea, and you will die.

Happy Valentines Day, everybody, from my new friend Gertie the Alligator

Here she is.

We met in the Everglades last week and got along famously.

Bound for the Everglades

This will be part of my new book in progress, tentatively titled Soaked to the Bone. I'll take loads of notes. Looking forward to the gators but not so much the mosquitoes. Thinking I should have seam-sealed my tent; potential rain out there. More soon.

My recipe for 'ugly latkes'

I know this blog has run its course, but Chanukah and Thanksgiving won't coincide again until about 25,000 years. By then, we'll all have four brains and gills like Kevin Costner in Waterworld. Maybe we won't even have tastebuds. Truly, it's now or never. Hope you like this recipe. And remember, cook the hell out of them!  Douse them in oil and fry them until they can take no more.

My new book, and mothballed until further notice

I am temporarily mothballing the Cactuseaters blog as I gear up for my second book, which is now under contract with HarperCollins. The working title is Soaked to the Bone: 15,000 Years of American Camping, and should be in your hands by 2016 I hope. I will try to update this from time to time, but meanwhile, I have embedded my Twitter feed in the right hand corner of this blog so I can at least keep you up to date about new adventures, etc.

I am contemplating a new website built around the upcoming book project. And, if you are seeking information on The Cactus Eaters, here are reviews and related links, and here is the recently updated Frequently Asked Questions link.  Meanwhile, please take a look at forthcoming issues of Catamaran for my essays about -- and interviews with -- T.C. Boyle, Lawrence Weschler, Helene Wecker, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and others.

By the way, I appreciate all of your emails, and it was fun to answer some of them the other day while hanging out at Suppenkuche in SF and nursing an enormous, frosty beer. Thank you for staying in touch. It is so weird to have a book out there and have no idea what it's up to; the book never stays in contact with me, it never calls, it never writes, and I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with it, either. So thank you for letting me know its whereabouts and whether it is getting into trouble or needs a hand-out from me every once in a while. More news and updates soon.

Writers who won't quit: responses to "The Man in the Shoebox"

Hi everyone. I found a couple of lovely pieces inspired by my Poets & Writers piece from last fall. I loved reading these, and here they are, from The Heart of the Memoir and Pam Parker.

I would send you a link to my story, too, but I can't because it's behind a paywall, but perhaps at some point I'll figure out a way to put up a link here. Anyway, it was an honor to read these, and sorry to be tardy about linking to your stories on my blog. I almost never check up on online responses to anything I write (and if you have read my story in Poets & Writers, you'll know why I only look once or twice a year!!) Also, it was fun to see a mention of Annie Dillard in The Heart of the Memoir; she was one of my teachers a long time ago (though I didn't mention her in the Poets piece.) In other news, I am hard at work on a brand-new project, and I'm hoping to get that into your hands in a couple of years or so. All for now.

Now in bookstores nationwide (and in Canada)! Latest issue of Catamaran is hot off the presses

I'm hoping you're all getting your hands on the latest issue of Catamaran (which is analog-only, by the way, and you'll see why when you get your hands on the magazine. Reading it is a very tactile experience.**) And thank you to all the great feedback and messages about the new issue. Catherine Segurson did a beautiful job with the design and layout; you will not find a more beautiful-looking lit magazine anywhere. Here is a brief excerpt of my interview with Lawrence Weschler, “Convergences, Chance Discoveries, and Going Back to Kindergarten,” featured in our summer issue. Weschler has been a staff writer for the New Yorker, and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Of late he has directed the New York Institute for Humanities at NYU. Here he is describing an ongoing artistic disagreement between the artists Robert Irwin and David Hockney:

“Sometime later I happened to be writing a catalog essay for an upcoming Irwin show, which in turn was very consciously on Irwin’s part a refutation of Hockney. And the two of them have been going at it like that for thirty-five years. I write about one and the other calls me and tells me, “Not true.” I write about the other one, same thing. This goes on and on, and, yes, as you say, they have never met. The thing that’s fun about it is that it’s not a stupid argument they’re having. They’re having a very deep and interesting argument.”

Hope you are having a great summer. Chances are I'll see you out on some campground somewhere, as 'the camping project' continues in earnest.

*** however, an e-reader version is in the works. Not sure when that's coming out. 

Images from the Pacific Crest Trail

in light of my recent return to the PCT, I thought I'd post some shots (new and vintage) and some illustrations and cartoons from various locations on and around the trail. Here goes. And by the way, I am so impressed by this new generation of clean, well-scrubbed trail hikers. As you can see, when I hiked the PCT, I did not place much of a premium on cleanliness at all. I've scrambled the sequence to test the memories of all you trail obsessives. (Do you think you can identify the various forests and mountains where these pictures were taken?)  If you're a true PCT old timer, you surely remember the kind-hearted, porkpie-hat-wearing fellow who appears in two of these pictures ...

My return to the Pacific Crest Trail (and I just saw a big fat bear!!!)

Happy to report that I returned to the PCT for the first time in a very long time, and I had the chance to meet five through hikers and talk to them for a little while. Four were polite but slightly grumpy and tired looking -- probably because they are lugging 50 pounds of pack weight across the mountains! Oh man. My back ached just looking at all that pack weight.

I met another through-hiker near the San Joaquin River. He was carrying very little, his pack looked really light -- and he was smiling like he was having the time of his life!

Anyways, it sure was great to meet all those hikers. I told them all that I was a PCT walker, class of '93 and '94.

By the way, I found it really strange that none of the hikers had seen a bear at all when I met them. Not one bear between Mexico and Reds Meadow, CA? The weird thing is, I saw a bear that very same day! After finishing my miniature PCT hike, I took a drive at dusk on Old Mammoth Road in the Eastern Sierra (a good 15 miles or so from the actual PCT). I stopped at a beautiful overlook, next to a truly wild looking, burly patch of land with yellow wildflowers growing on it, and at that very moment a big fat brown bear (fully grown male, by the look of him) came tumbling out of the woods, shaking his ears and staring right at me!

We looked at each other for a good long time, and then, without making any noise at all, he waddled through the meadow and into a copse of trees.

A chomp-induced hiatus from blogging, and a message to all Pacific Crest Trail hikers

Hi everyone. I'm a little out of sorts after being chomped by an exotic, long-necked Gruiform and getting a tetanus shot, which has made me rather sleepy over the past 24 hours, so I'll check in with you all a bit later on. On top of this, I am annoyed about the fact that this blog (from what I hear) keeps getting traffic from online porn sites (!!!) If you are scanning through this blog in search of online pornographic stuff, you have come to the wrong place, my friend. Nothing all that racy here, unless you're turned on by pictures of cookies, wildflowers, scenery, etc.

Also, if you are out there just setting off on the Pacific Crest Trail, heading northward down in Southern California, here is some second-hand advice, pulled straight from the pages of my first book. (when I say 'second hand,' I mean to say that I didn't come up with this advice myself. It was told to me before I started out on the trail, and I thought about it every day.)

-- Don't quit the trail when you've got bad blisters. Only consider quitting when they heal completely.

--Don't even think about quitting the trail during a rainy, muddy, blecchy, two-week stretch of bad weather. Only consider quitting on a sunny day when the weather is mild and everything is going just the way it should.

-- Never quit during an ugly, dried-out, scorched-earth day on the trail.

--Obviously, there are very legitimate reasons to stop doing the trail (getting injured, for example, or an unavoidable life conflict, or getting timed out or running out of money completely, or realizing it would make sense to just do it section-by-section, or maybe the trail just isn't for you. But don't just  up and quit because you're a little achey or impatient or not going as quickly as you wanted to go, or other people are bagging more miles than you can, or the trail doesn't conform to each and every one of your expectations. As they say, it gets better. 

- Don't make a mad rush to Canada (unless, of course, you're coming up against snowfall or some other practical consideration). There's nothing in Manning Park!

-- So long for at least a couple of weeks or so, and if you're so inclined, I'm still occasionally beeping out updates on Twitter. And if you are out on the trail and feel like sending an update into this blog, feel free to do so. Happy walking. Oh, and one more thing -- as limitless as the trail might seen, in the scheme of things it is very short indeed, so try to enjoy yourselves!

At long last, a new Cactuseaters format for the 21st century (?)

If you're so inclined, here is my Twitter feed. I'm a latecomer to this thing because my blog posts are so short anyway that it felt kind of redundant. Some of you have complained that you can't figure out how to get onto my Twitter feed. Will try to figure out a way to make it scroll across the top of the blog like a news alert. Far from having figured that out just yet.

Here it is.

Coming soon from Catamaran Literary Reader: a conversation with Lawrence Weschler

The other day I had an hourlong phone conversation with one of my favorite creative nonfiction authors, Lawrence Weschler. We talked about everything from the "uncanny valley" of digital animation to the grisly fate of the legendary Cameroonian stink ant (see above) and the creative interplay between the artists Robert Irwin and David Hockney. It felt more like a real conversation than an interview, and that's what I liked about it. Anyhow, you'll  get to read all about it in the upcoming issue of Catamaran. As a matter of fact, I just might publish a few outtakes from the talk (the original transcription came in at more than 6,000 words (!!) at some future date.  There were some gems that wound up in the cast-off box.  I don't want to suppress them for too long.

In other news, I am taking a wilderness survival course this weekend at UCSC in preparation for a camping experiment. I am a bit nervous about it but the experiment must proceed.

Think twice before renting a Victorian in San Francisco (especially if you have little kids)

In honor of Mother's Day this Sunday, Amy Ettinger agreed to be a guest on Lead Free SF's web forum, speaking to San Francisco parents on a "mom to mom" level about the dangers of lead paint. (Don't expect SF landlords to come clean about their lead situations. Our chatterbox of a landlord could not stop crowing about the apartment's history and every element of its construction, but he somehow 'forgot' to mention there was no lead abatement whatsoever...) The second we realized there was a problem, we hired up a moving truck and cleared out of SF. Fortunately, Santa Cruz was waiting for us! Here is that link.

My secondary career in baking

Some people know me only from my articles, essays, and book, but I'm still enjoying small crumbs of notoriety for  the official Banana Slug cookie I developed for UC Santa Cruz, pictured below.

When I say "developed," I am speaking only of the cookie's shape and design, not the ingredients, the frosting or anything else. I had no say in the butter content, amount of sugar, etc. I developed the Banana Slug cookie cutter by buying a very cheap cat-shaped cookie cutter and hitting it with a hammer until it looked more or less like the Slug mascot of UCSC. Then I sent specifications and the cookie cutter to The Buttery bake shop, telling them where to place the eyes, the smiley mouth, and so on.

   

                                     

You are probably wondering why I am flogging this same old news on my blog once more. Well, here is the reason: Recently, Chancellor George Blumenthal mentioned these cookies (prominently) in his list of Top 10 happy moments during his years on campus. He read the list out loud during the recent Alumni Weekend festivities. To mark the occasion, the Buttery baked up a brand-new batch of these cookies (photographs below.)

Here is the chancellor's list, verbatim. The cookie is mentioned in item number six.

UCSC has been my happy place for 41 years. Here's a Top Ten list that captures just ten favorite memories:

#10: My very first visit to campus, as a UC San Diego grad student attending an all-UC conference. It was amazing. I'd never seen a campus like this.

#9: Cold dark matter. This campus allowed me, as a researcher, to make a significant contribution, for which I will always be grateful.

#8: The moment the elevator I was stuck in opened on October 17, 1989--45 minutes after the Loma Prieta earthquake struck.

#7: The East Field is one of my favorite places. The view is spectacular; it's where my investiture as chancellor took place, and this is where commencement takes place each spring. It's a very happy place.

#6: The day in 1986 when students made the Banana Slug our official campus mascot. The slug prevailed, besting the sea lion in a campuswide vote. On the 25th anniversary in 2011, the Buttery made special-edition banana slug cookies, and the City Council proclaimed September 27th the "Day of the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slug Mascot." How far we've come!

#5: The first time I biked up to campus. I made it to the top, but it wasn't easy!

#4: I have had the pleasure of knowing all four of UCSC's alumni regents: Paul Hall, Alan Goodman, Gary Novack, and Ken Feingold.They've all done great work for the campus and the university, and they make me proud.

#3: I'm pleased to have played a behind-the-scenes role in securing a staff advisor to the Regents. The story includes a hushed conversation with a UCLA staffer that took place behind a potted palm—I felt a little like James Bond!

#2: This one goes back to 1983 or so: The day I gave my professor's inaugural lecture at Oakes College was a very happy moment. Making full professor and being introduced by Herman Blake was a winning combination!

My #1 happy memory from this happy place is pretty recent: On February 1, I had the honor of accompanying astronomy professor Sandy Faber to the White House where President Obama presented her with the National Medal of Science. What a moment. It's one we can all share and in which we can take great pride."

Anyhow, thank you, Buttery Bakery, for keeping my cookies alive. As graduation draws near for UCSC, look for more of my cookies at the bakery. They should have them as a seasonal offering for at least a couple of weeks.