Thomas Fensch is editor of Conversations with James Thurber, published by University Press of Mississippi. He is also author of four books about John Steinbeck, which help establish his international reputation in Steinbeck scholarship: Steinbeck and Covici: The Story of a Friendship; Essential Elements of Steinbeck; The FBI Files on Steinbeck and Steinbeck’s Bitter Fruit: From the Grapes of Wrath to Occupy Wall Street.

Conversations with John Steinbeck contains all the public interviews Steinbeck gave during his life. His life, it seems in retrospect, can be seen in three phases: his early life in his native state of California; the war years of the 1940s, and the years thereafter.

In the earliest interviews in this collection, his is seen actually hiding from publicity, living in and near Monterey Bay, California, as he struggled to become established as a writer.

Later, the publication of The Grapes of’ Wrath, in 1939, became extremely controversial; he left the country for a time to escape the unceasing demands of’ the press and the public. The Grapes of Wrath is now generally considered the definitive novel of Depression-era America and is still widely read. Interviews in this collection show him dealing with two failed marriages before a successful third marriage; moving from one writing project to another, dealing with fame and controversy and traveling. These collected interviews offer a unique portrait of a major twentieth-century novelist at work and throughout his life. John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.