Indeed, critics dealt out a good number of aughts and shoulds, suggesting repeatedly that a book with a moral theme must assume a weighty tone. “This book whimpers where it should bang,” intoned the critic for
America,
while Melvin Maddocks of the
Christian Science Monitor
asserted that since Steinbeck’s “natural hero is the primitive,” he should not stray to “man as a social creature.” And Granville Hicks of the
Saturday Review
thought Steinbeck’s book “superficial. He says nothing, for instance, about the fact that our whole economy depends on the production and consumption of more and more unnecessary goods, and he says nothing about the part that advertising plays. . . .” That seems so wildly beside the point that one wonders if he read the novel at all. Quite a few critics, in fact, seemed eager to rewrite the book. Writing for the
New York World Telegram,
John Barkham said that the “narrative is an example of the approach oblique where the approach direct was needed.” What would have grated in that review was the accompanying notion that Steinbeck had betrayed his own reputation by being inconsistent. For the whole of his long career, John Steinbeck resisted consistency. Each book was an “experiment” in his eyes, and with each, he felt, reviewers wanted him to turn back to some previous triumph—usually his work of the late 1930s.
Not all reviews were soggy, however. In a blurb published on the dust jacket of the first edition, Saul Bellow said that Steinbeck had returned to the “high standards” of
Grapes,
and he advised critics who “said of him that he had seen his best days” to “prepare to eat crow.”
Newsweek
concurred: “Steinbeck in his old, rare form.” And so did William Hogan of the
San Francisco Chronicle:
“I am happy that one of my old heroes is back swinging his talent at a subject that makes him mad.” Steinbeck as social critic was the man America wanted, even if the critique was served raw; popular
McCall’s
magazine ran it in four parts, and Reader’s Digest Book Club selected it a month after publication.
But in spite of these endorsements,
Winter
would be his last fictional swing. John Steinbeck never wrote another novel. Stung by negative reviews, he was further battered by his own country’s response to the October 1962 announcement that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. The spokesman for the Nobel Prize committee, Dr. Anders Osterling, had included this last novel on the list of those that had swayed the committee’s decision, for the Swedish Academy felt that Steinbeck had an “unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American, be it good or wicked.” The acclaim of the world, however, did little to silence American voices of disapprobation—at least in Steinbeck’s own mind. The writer who, since his first novel in 1929, had experimented again and again with fictional techniques, structures, and voices was nearly drowned by human voices.
But not quite. He did not stop writing in 1960. In his last eight years of life, John Steinbeck composed two thoughtful and engaging works of nonfiction,
Travels with Charley
and the somber and prophetic
America and Americans,
as well as a series of articles about Vietnam. For Steinbeck, as for Ethan, as for all his wounded heroes, the light does not go out. Hope for human creativity and belief in empathetic engagement remain steady flickers throughout John Steinbeck’s long career as a fiercely engaged American artist.
Suggestions for Further Reading
Baker, Carlos. “All That Was in the Cards for a Man Named Ethan Hawley,” in
John Steinbeck: The Contemporary Reviews,
eds. Joseph R. McElrath Jr., Jesse S. Crisler, and Susan Shillinglaw. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Benson, Jackson.
The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer
. New York: Viking, 1984; Penguin, 1990.
Cederstrom, Lorelei. “The Psychological Journey of Ethan Allen Hawley,” in
Steinbeck Yearbook,
vol. 1,
The Winter of Our Discontent
. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000: 1-24.
Combs, Robert. “Reconstructing Ethan Hawley: A Dramatic Perspective on the Crisis of Masculinity in
The Winter of Our Discontent,”
in
Steinbeck Yearbook,
vol. 1,
The Winter of Our Discontent.
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000: 25-46.
DeMott, Robert.
Steinbeck’s Reading: A Catalogue of Books Owned and Borrowed.
New York: Garland, 1984.
Ditsky, John. “Rowing from Eden: Closure in Later John Steinbeck.”
North Dakota Review
60, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 87-100.
Fensch, Thomas.
Conversations with John Steinbeck
. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988.
Fontenrose, Joseph.
John Steinbeck: An Introduction and Interpretation
. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1963.
French, Warren.
John Steinbeck
. Boston: Twain Publishers, 1975.
Gerstenberger, Donna. “Steinbeck’s American Waste Land,”
Modern Fiction Studies
11, no. 1 (Spring 1965): 59-65.
Heavilin, Barbara. “Steinbeck’s American Arthuriad: Ethan Allan Hawley as Lancelot Grotesque,” in
Steinbeck Yearbook,
vol. 1,
The Winter of Our Discontent.
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000: 145-57.
Lewis, Clifford.
Rediscovering Steinbeck: Revisionist Views of His Art, Politics and Intellect
. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989.
Lieber, Todd M. “Talismanic Patterns in the Novels of John Steinbeck.”
American Literature
44: 262-75, May 1972.
Mizener, Arthur. “Does a Moral Vision of the Thirties Deserve a Nobel Prize?”
New York Times,
Dec. 9, 1962.
Morsberger, Robert E. and Katherine M. “Falling Stars: The Quiz Show Scandal in Steinbeck’s
The Winter of Our Discontent,
Richard Greenberg’s
Night and Her Stars,
and Robert Redford’s
Quiz Show,
” in
Steinbeck Yearbook,
vol. 1,
The Winter of Our Discontent.
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 47-76.
Osterling, Anders. “Radio announcement on the 25th of October 1962 by Dr. Anders Osterling, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy and Chairman of the Nobel Committee of the Academy.” Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.
Owens, Louis.
John Steinbeck’s Re-Vision of America
. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985.
Philbrick, Nathaniel. “At Sea in the Tide Pool: The Whaling Town and America in Steinbeck’s
The Winter of Our Discontent
and
Travels with Charley,
” in
Steinbeck and the Environment,
eds. Susan F. Beegel, Susan Shillinglaw, and Wesley N. Tiffney Jr. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997: 229-42.
Shillinglaw, Susan. “ ‘What a mess of draggletail impulses a man is’: Voices in
The Winter of Our Discontent,
” in
Steinbeck Yearbook,
vol. 1,
The Winter of Our Discontent.
Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000: 185-205.
————, and Jackson J. Benson, eds.
John Steinbeck
:
“America and Americans” and Selected Nonfiction
. New York: Viking, 2002.
Simpson, Hassell A. “Steinbeck’s Anglo-Saxon ‘Wonder-Words’ and the American Paradox.”
American Literature
62, no. 2, June 1990: 310-17.
Steinbeck, Elaine, and Robert Wallsten, eds.
Steinbeck: A Life in Letters
. New York: Viking, 1975; Penguin, 1976.
Steinbeck, John. “The Bank Robbery.” Private Collection of Kenneth and Karen Holmes, North Carolina.
———. “How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank, or the American Dream, an unpublished, unproduced, unconsidered play in One Act by John Steinbeck.” The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas.
———. “The Winter of Our Discontent.” Manuscript, Pier-pont Morgan Library.
Stuurmans, Harry. “John Steinbeck’s Lover’s Quarrel with America.” Diss., University of Michigan, 1973.
To Beth, my sister,
whose light burns clear
Readers seeking to identify the fictional people and places
here described would do better to inspect their own
communities and search their own hearts, for this book
is about a large part of America today.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
When the fair gold morning of April stirred Mary Hawley awake, she turned over to her husband and saw him, little fingers pulling a frog mouth at her.
“You’re silly,” she said. “Ethan, you’ve got your comical genius.”
“Oh say, Miss Mousie, will you marry me?”
“Did you wake up silly?”
“The year’s at the day. The day’s at the morn.”
“I guess you did. Do you remember it’s Good Friday?”
He said hollowly, “The dirty Romans are forming up for Calvary.”
“Don’t be sacrilegious. Will Marullo let you close the store at eleven?”
“Darling chicken-flower—Marullo is a Catholic and a wop. He probably won’t show up at all. I’ll close at noon till the execution’s over.”
“That’s Pilgrim talk. It’s not nice.”
“Nonsense, ladybug. That’s from my mother’s side. That’s pirate talk. It
was
an execution, you know.”
“They were not pirates. You said yourself, whalers, and you said they had letters of what-you-call-it from the Continental Congress.”
“The ships they fired on thought they were pirates. And those Roman G.I.’s thought it was an execution.”
“I’ve made you mad. I like you better silly.”
“I am silly. Everybody knows that.”
“You always mix me up. You’ve got every right to be proud— Pilgrim Fathers and whaling captains right in one family.”
“Have they?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would my great ancestors be proud to know they produced a goddam grocery clerk in a goddam wop store in a town they used to own?”
“You are not. You’re more like the manager, keep the books and bank the money and order the goods.”
“Sure. And I sweep out and carry garbage and kowtow to Marullo, and if I was a goddam cat, I’d be catching Marullo’s mice.”
She put her arms around him. “Let’s be silly,” she said. “Please don’t say swear words on Good Friday. I do love you.”
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “That’s what they all say. Don’t think that lets you lie jaybird naked with a married man.”
“I was going to tell you about the children.”
“They in jail?”
“Now you’re silly again. Maybe it’s better if they tell you.”
“Now why don’t you—”
“Margie Young-Hunt’s going to read me again today.”
“Like a book? Who’s Margie Young-Hunt, what is she, that all our swains—”
“You know if I was jealous—I mean they say when a man pretends he don’t notice a pretty girl—”
“Oh, that one. Girl? She’s had two husbands.”
“The second one died.”
“I want my breakfast. Do you believe that stuff?”
“Well Margie saw about Brother in the cards. Someone near and dear, she said.”
“Someone near and dear to me is going to get a kick in the pants if she doesn’t haul freight—”
“I’m going—eggs?”
“I guess so. Why do they call it Good Friday? What’s good about it?”
“Oh! You!” she said. “You always make jokes.”
The coffee was made and the eggs in a bowl with toast beside them when Ethan Allen Hawley slid into the dinette near the window.
“I feel good,” he said. “Why do they call it Good Friday?”
“Spring,” she said from the stove.
“Spring Friday?”
“Spring fever. Is that the children up?”
“Fat chance. Lazy little bastards. Let’s get ’em up and whip ’em.”
“You talk terrible when you’re silly. Will you come home twelve to three?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Women. Sneak ’em in. Maybe that Margie.”
“Now Ethan, don’t you talk like that. Margie’s a good friend. She’d give you the shirt off her back.”
“Yah? Where’d she get the shirt?”
“That’s Pilgrim talk again.”
“I bet you anything we’re related. She’s got pirate blood.”
“Oh! You’re just silly again. Here’s your list.” She tucked it in his breast pocket. “Seems like a lot. But it’s Easter weekend, don’t forget—and two dozen eggs, don’t forget. You’re going to be late.”
“I know. Might miss a two-bit sale for Marullo. Why two dozen?”
“For dyeing. Allen and Mary Ellen asked specially. You better go.”
“Okay, bugflower—but can’t I just go up and beat the hell out of Allen and Mary Ellen?”
“You spoil them rotten, Eth. You know you do.”
“Farewell, O ship of state,” he said, and slammed the screen door after him and went out into the green-gold morning.
He looked back at the fine old house, his father’s house and his great-grandfather’s, white-painted shiplap with a fanlight over the front door, and Adam decorations and a widow’s walk on the roof. It was deep-set in the greening garden among lilacs a hundred years old, thick as your waist, and swelling with buds. The elms of Elm Street joined their tops and yellowed out in new-coming leaf. The sun had just cleared the bank building and flashed on the silvery gas tower, starting the kelp and salt smell from the old harbor.
Only one person in early Elm Street, Mr. Baker’s red setter, the banker’s dog, Red Baker, who moved with slow dignity, pausing occasionally to sniff the passenger list on the elm trunks.
“Good morning, sir. My name is Ethan Allen Hawley. I’ve met you in pissing.”
Red Baker stopped and acknowledged the greeting, with a slow sway of his plumed tail.
Ethan said, “I was just looking at my house. They knew how to build in those days.”
Red cocked his head and reached with a hind foot to kick casually at his ribs.