Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage

Carol Henning Steinbeck, writer John Steinbeck’s first wife, was his creative anchor and the inspiration for his great works of the 1930s, which culminated with the publication of The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. When Carol and John met at Lake Tahoe in 1928, their personalities immediately meshed in creative synergy. In the next decade, the formative years that brought forth The Red Pony and Of Mice and Men, Carol and John lived in San Francisco, Eagle Rock, Pacific Grove, and Los Gatos. Their modernist circle of friends included Ed Ricketts, Joseph Campbell, John Cage, and Lincoln Steffens. But above all it was Carol who was essential in helping the novelist find his voice, leading him to write of his home, California, and the plight of the people around him. In many ways, Carol’s story is all too familiar: a creative and intelligent woman subsumes her own life and work into those of her husband. Together, they brought forth one of the most enduring novels of the twentieth century. 

Susan Shillinglaw’s extensive research for this biography included new interviews as well as previously unpublished Steinbeck and Ricketts manuscripts and letters, and Carol Henning’s own artworks, scrapbooks, and poetry. Carol and John Steinbeck is the first book to focus on the writer’s first marriage and its decisive early influences on his work.