Abstract
Throughout Steinbeck’s writing, he uses characters based on Ricketts. After his friend’s accidental death when his car stalled on the railroad tracks, he increases his writing about “Doc,” often the Ricketts figure. Gwyn Steinbeck divorces Steinbeck soon after Ricketts’ death, taking their two sons back to New York. Steinbeck writes The Wayward Bus and the lengthy “About Ed Ricketts.” The latter essay appears as a new segment of Steinbeck’s The Log from The Sea of Cortez. He later finishes the paisano saga by writing Sweet Thursday, a postmodern commentary on Cannery Row, again featuring a Ricketts-like character.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Benson points out accurately that much of Steinbeck’s fascination with Ricketts was dependent on that man’s life work. He sees Cannery Row as a “professional tribute” to Ricketts, shown through the detailed descriptions of his work.
- 2.
Within the letter Steinbeck qualified what he meant by “funny:” “Not that it won’t be funny but funny as Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote are funny.” Steinbeck, with Ricketts, enjoyed all those tales (SLL 284).
- 3.
Steinbeck’s choice of the name of the woman Juan had married, Alice Chicoy, may have reflected the woman Ricketts was to marry in 1947, Alice Campbell. Even though Ricketts’ divorce from his first wife, Anna, was never final, he married the Berkeley graduate student at the end of that year.
- 4.
Ricketts had for some years been living with the journalist Toni Jackson, whose daughter Kay was slowly dying with an inoperable brain tumor. This letter may refer to those conditions, or it may refer to Ricketts’ depression itself. According to the notes in the Letters, Ricketts seems not to have visited New York.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wagner-Martin, L. (2017). The Ed Ricketts Narratives. In: John Steinbeck. Literary Lives. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55382-9_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55382-9_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55381-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-55382-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)