"Travels with Charley" by John Steinback, Fifty Years Later
First published in 1962, John Steinback's "Travels with Charley" chronicles the author's automobile journey across the United States with his elderly french poodle Charley. I read the low priced Bantam paperback edition (proud Goodwill purchase) which was published in July, 1963. The book contains Steinback's impression of the diverse American landscape and people as he drove from state to state, not only to see but to understand the condition of the country he often wrote of in his novels. The reader views America from John Steinback's wise, learned and subjective perspective. At the age of fifty-eight, he described the substance of all journeys as different from other journeys; we think that we are taking a trip, but sometimes it is the trip that takes us to unexpected places. (4). Steinback traveled from Long Island, New York, to Maine, through the Midwest into Montana, to California, Texas, and...