Down to a Soundless Sea

Here is a fiction debut that is cause for celebration. Growing up in a family that valued the art of storytelling and the power of oral history, Thomas Steinbeck now follows in his father's footsteps with a brilliant story collection. Down to a Soundless Sea resonates with the rich history and culture of California, recalling vivid details of life in Monterey County from the turn of the century through the 1930s. Steinbeck accomplishes an amazing feat: His stories have the feel of classic literature, but his haunting voice, forceful narrative drive, and dazzling imagery are unmistakably his own.

In seven stories, Steinbeck traces the fates and dreams of an eccentric cast of characters, from sailors and ranchers to doctors and immigrants - as each struggles to carve out a living in the often inhospitable environment of rocky cliffs, crashing surf, and rough patches of land along the California coast.

Here is an unprecedented fiction debut that is cause for celebration. Growing up in a family that valued the art of storytelling and the power of oral history, Thomas Steinbeck now follows in his father's footsteps with a brilliant story collection.

Book Magazine

These seven gemlike stories, written in careful, hyperobservant prose, give us California's Monterey Peninsula in its early days—a time when prospectors, immigrants, Native Americans, ranchers and adventurers all contended with the dangerous, if beautiful, land. The author, son of legendary writer John Steinbeck, shares with his trailblazing father an empathy for strugglers, for life's long sufferers who prevail through courage or die trying. These days, this is almost antique writing—shorn of irony, word gaming or flash—and it's more than welcome. As Steinbeck explains in an author's note that's also a fond reminiscence of his family's storytelling tradition, he aims to recapture not only the sensibilities of his nineteenth-century protagonists, but also their language—a kind of formality that heightens the atmosphere of these tales. From "The Night Guide," a story of a child hero, to "Sing Fat and the Imperial Duchess of Woo," an Eastern love story set in the Wild West, this collection is a remarkable debut. Steinbeck is now at work on a novel; the form's larger canvas should give him even more room to excel.

Thomas Steinbeck began his career in the 1960s as a motion picture cinematographer and photojournalist in Vietnam. Interspersed with his writing, speaking and producing obligations, Mr. Steinbeck has taught college-level courses in American Literature, creative writing, and communication arts. He serves on the board of directors of the Stella Adler Theatre Los Angeles and the National Steinbeck Center. He has written numerous original screenplays and documentaries as well as adaptations of his father’s work. Thomas Steinbeck lives on the central coast of California with his wife. He is currently at work on his first novel.