Travels with Charley

In 1960, Steinbeck leaves Long Island in a purpose-built camper named Rocinante with his poodle Charley and drives through New England, the Midwest, the northern plains, the Pacific Northwest, California, Texas and the Deep South. He speaks with farmers, shopkeepers, migrant workers and travellers while revisiting places he knew earlier in life and testing whether the country still resembles the America he believes he understands.

The travelogue combines observation, memory and shaped narrative rather than functioning as a literal day-by-day record. Its subjects include environmental change, regional identity, consumer culture, ageing and racial conflict, culminating in Steinbeck’s account of school desegregation protests in New Orleans and his troubled reflections on the nation’s capacity for both movement and resistance to change.