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Suggestions for Further Exploration JENNA GARDEN AND SUSAN SHILLINGLAW In 1960, Steinbeck decried the slippage of American morality, fearing that “by our very attitudes we are drawing catastrophe to ourselves” (Steinbeck to Adlai Stevenson, late 1959). Immediately after completing his final searing novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, Steinbeck embarked on a road trip to reconnect with America and Americans. An engaging account of his travels with his poodle Charley, Travels with Charley also examines the country’s shortcomings: political apathy, environmental degradation, and strident racism. In a 1962 letter to Robert and Cynthia Wallsten, Steinbeck noted that even though “everybody in America is scared of everything,” his own reputation was “not based on timidity or on playing safe.” The transformative nature of road trips: On the Road (Jack Kerouac, 1957): Heralded as quintessentially American, On the Road captures the restless Beat movement and subsequent 1960s counterculture. Blue Highways (William Least Heat-Moon, 1982): Personal anguish sends the author on a three-month soul-searching road trip through the forgotten corners of America. The Devil’s Highway: A True Story (Luis Alberto Urrea, 2004): Socially engaged in a way that Steinbeck would have endorsed, The Devil’s Highway details the trials of twenty-six men who attempt to cross the Mexican border into southern Arizona. “Go Greyhound” (Bob Hicok, 2004): Hicok’s poem speaks to the feelings of loneliness and exhaustion that often plague travelers, as well as the relief that comes with shedding a turbulent past.
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