John Steinbeck: A Biography

This biography of the popular American novelist (1902-1968) is absorbing and generous. Parini, a professor of English literature and creative writing at Middlebury College, poet and novelist (Bay of Arrows), draws on interviews with dozens of people, including playwright Terrence McNally (tutor to Steinbeck's sons), actor Burgess Meredith and Steinbeck's third wife, Elaine, as well as published and unpublished letters, diaries and manuscripts. He documents the writer's slow discovery of a voice and method-terse, socially conscious and rooted in both the closely observed landscape and resonant biblical and mythological archetypes-that resulted in such powerful novels as The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck's popularity and his Pulitzer and controversial Nobel prizes attracted unflattering reassessments of his work, exacerbating his perpetual uncertainties about its value. Parini's deft, thoughtful appraisal of Steinbeck's oeuvre supplements a sympathetic but unsentimental view of a sometimes difficult man. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb.)