Synopsis
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.