WRITER’S LIFEGUARD -
more from Jules Older following his Steinbeck rave last week.


SUCH A SWEET response to the Steinbeck piece. Many of us seem to hold a special spot in our hearts, minds and typing fingers for the man and his writing. Here are three I'd like you to see.



From Larry Schofer, author and translator in Philadelphia:



Hi Jules,I wonder why you didn’t mention Of Mice and Men.
Although the members of my book club were not impressed when we read it not long ago, I still have vivid impressions of the relationships among the people. It’s more like a play than a novella, but I was very touched by it.I've read only the famous ones you mention, but they certainly leave an impression. Let me throw a related book into the pot: Wallace Stegner’s Big Rock Candy Mountain – for me it has a lot of parallels to Grapes of Wrath – the wandering, the inability to find a place in life, the inter-family tension. This was the first book to be enjoyed by all 4 members of my family (wife and 2 sons when they were teenagers).I have to admit that Stegner stands higher in my pantheon than does Steinbeck.
Thanks for the interesting and stimulating comments.



From Steve Foreman, novelist and screenwriter in the woods of upstate New York:

Jules, I'm with you on Steinbeck. Discovered Grapes of Wrath at 14. Am still haunted by it as I am with East of Eden. [and] I never tire of Of Mice and Men. It's got to have maybe the most agonizing ending in literature. And how about The Red Pony, a very puzzling book.
I'm an anomaly to a certain generation of male writer: it's not Hemingway who ever really got to me. It was Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair.

And let's not forget about Jack London, even Bret Harte. Melville and all the rest of those lit heavyweights came much later for me.


And, finally, Moira McCarthy, ski writer and activist from Massachusetts, seems to share my Steinbeck gene:


True story: My very first REAL job interview. I'm 21 and interviewing to be editor of six tiny weeklies. The receptionist walks me through the production room/newsroom. Old nylons are everywhere (great for wiping wax off galleys). A few empty beer bottles rattle around my feet (apparently some kind of party the night before). I walk into a tiny disheveled office in the back and the publisher -- who looks like he hasn't brushed his thick white hair in days and may have been the one who scoffed down the beers I saw -- gestures to a rickety chair. I sit down.
He stares at me for a moment and then barks: "What 20th century writer has influenced you most?''I don't hesitate. "Steinbeck.""Yeah, well gimme a line. A line that mattered to you," he barks back."Why don't you go take a flying fuddug to the moon?" I reply.I was hired instantly. And while I left the company to move on a year or two later, that publisher is still a good friend.



HNY, writers. Let us prosper in tough times.


jules