An Interview With Thomas Steinbeck, Son of Nobel Prize Winning Novelist John Steinbeck, and Author of DOWN TO A SOUNDLESS SEA

Interviewed by Byron Merritt

There is some misinformation floating around about Thomas Steinbeck that he'd like to clear up. "I was NOT a cinematographer in Vietnam during the war!" Mr. Steinbeck told me. He says that -through the necessity to continue breathing-he had to become a helicopter door gunner only three days after arriving in country because the Tet offensive of 1968 had begun. After the Tet offensive had settled down, he went into Armed Forces Radio (where he was supposed to go in the first place). He was also never a "teacher" at any college. "I have a passion for teachers and what they do, but I don't pretend to be able to do what they do on a daily basis," he told me. He did teach courses at various universities whenever he was "contracted" to do so. He is on the board of directors of the Stella Adler Theater in Los Angeles, California, and the board for the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California. He has, indeed, written numerous original screenplays and documentaries as well as adaptations of his father's work. Mr. Steinbeck currently resides on the California Central Coast with his lovely wife, Gail.

(FWOMP has received some new information on Mr. Steinbeck's latest book project, too! The working title for his first novel length story is called CAVERNS MEASURELESS TO MAN-no set publication date-which is about an Irish immigrant coming to California.)

FWOMP: My grandfather (Frank Herbert) was married to a wonderful woman, Bev, for many years before she passed away. They were what you might call 'life-partners'. He wrote the books and dealt with the publishers while she kept him grounded at home and helped filter things such as his fan-base, interviews, and the like. Does your wife, Gail, play a similar role in your literary life?

Thom Steinbeck: Absolutely. Gail is my Chinese Wall; she's my miner's canary, too, as well as my first and best editor. She deals with all of that contract and copyright crap that's oh so important in this industry. I write. That's what I do. I haven't balanced a checkbook since 1954. I just hope that my ATM card gives me money when I need it. If it doesn't, it's straight to Gail to ask, "Hey, what happened?"

FWOMP: Your latest book, DOWN TO A SOUNDLESS SEA, is a collection of short stories set in the Monterey Bay area, very much like our MONTEREY SHORTS anthology. Why did you decide to do a short story collection rather than a novel?

TS: I didn't decide to do a short story collection. It was actually Michael Freed's idea. He's a real estate attorney and developer for the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, California. Bill Post, Michael Freed and I had attended the reburial of a Rumsen Indian near the Post Ranch several years ago. It was great, too. At least as great as reburying someone can be, if you know what I mean. There were Native Rumsen drummers and dancers and it was really a site to behold. But after that we went up to Michael Freed's place high up a bluff in Big Sur that looked out over the Pacific Ocean. The three of us cracked open an ancient bottle of tequila and started drinking and telling stories that we'd grown up with and, at one point, Michael looked blearily at me and said, "You know, you should write these down, Thom, and put them into a book so we can get 'em published." I was pretty dubious about it and wondered who in the hell outside of this area would ever want to buy such a book. But he lit a candle under my butt and I wrote all the stories out in about six to ten months and sent it to my father's editor/agent in New York. He had some test readers look at it (with the cover torn off so they didn't know who had written them) and they liked it. And I had poo-pooed the idea! Boy, you never can tell.

FWOMP: You live and breath on the California Central Coast. DOWN TO A SOUNDLESS SEA shows us your connection to this place. Do you intend to stick with writing about the Monterey area, or do you have plans to cover new territory?

TS: I don't know. I guess it depends on what my publisher thinks will sell! For me, it's not so much about the place really as it is about the end-stage of my characters within the story. I do feel attached to Big Sur though. I've traveled on horseback through most of the back country. What amazes me is that everything in the world changes every time I venture into it ("Hey, where did that shopping mall come from!"), but Big Sur never changes.

FWOMP: Do you plan to stick with writing short stories, or do you plan to switch to novels. Which do you feel is more rewarding to write?

TS: Short stories are wonderful! I love them. But they're making me write a novel now. Oh well. Short stories are like little vignettes that can encompass just as much as a novel can, and they're convenient. It's kind of like writing poetry, too, or setting precious gems into a ring. Those little stories can be pretty damn powerful, you know?

FWOMP: How does writing a screenplay compare to doing a novel or short story?

TS: Short stories and screenplays have a similar . . . ground plan I guess you'd call it. But screenplays can be terribly boring to write. But you can make some really good money writing screenplays, too. I'm lucky if I can get two to three screenplays out a year, though. It really pisses me off when these guys like Stephen King say things like, "You should be writing seven books a year." To hell with that! I write because I enjoy it, not because of the volumes of stuff I could put out.

FWOMP: I got the feeling that there was a lot of fact mixed in with the fiction in DOWN TO A SOUNDLESS SEA. Particularly, I felt that the story THE WOOL GATHERER, which focused on a young John Steinbeck, had quite a bit of fact mixed in. How much fact versus fiction is contained within this story and the others in the book?

TS: It's all fact as far as I know [laughs]. I did do a lot of research to verify my historical references in the book. I cross-referenced a lot of people with characters in the book and I researched location and dates so that I could say for sure that 'this guy was here at this time.' I actually found Chapel Lodge's boat rotting in Moss Landing many years ago and checked out a lot of references on him and the Los Angeles before it sank. So yeah, there's a lot of facts in there.

FWOMP: Being from a famous literary family myself, I always feel like there's this huge shadow looming over me. It's not entirely uncomfortable and I'm sure that some writers out there wish they had this problem. Do you feel like there were, or are, certain negative and positive aspects of growing up with such a famous father as John Steinbeck behind you?

TS: I don't see any negatives to it because of how my father was. He really was an incredible man. He dressed just like any other person on the street, usually looking like a seaman. But we were never "in his shadow" because he carried his children on his shoulders out in the light of the world. If I had to rate my father on a scale from zero to ten, I'd give him an eight-and-a-half or nine. I keep that extra point away because I'm a snotty little bastard. Speaking of which, I'm writing (at least working on) another book about my father. I'm going to call it NOTES FROM AN UNGRATEFUL CHILD. Dad would've loved it!

FWOMP: Time is always a problem for me. I help with fan-based stuff for my grandfather's estate, work full time, conduct annoying interviews, try to be a parent to teenaged twins and still find time to write. Have you found a way to balance these, or similar, items in your life?

TS: I refuse to do anything I don't want to do. I'm selfish with my time. Really. But my dad was completely open with his. To me, though, time is ideas. I'm here to be creative, not please other people. I don't want to look back at the end of my life and say, "Hey I'm glad I could help you out!" and then discover that I didn't do anything to please myself.

FWOMP: Okay, I gotta ask a standard blah, blah question. If you had to pick a favorite John Steinbeck novel or story, which one would it be?

TS: Oh that's tough. Hmm. I'd have to say either INDUBIOUS BATTLE or THE MOON IS DOWN. The local Norwegian community actually presented my dad with a military medal for THE MOON IS DOWN. If you haven't read it, you'll understand why once you do.

FWOMP: What about your favorite non-Steinbeck book?

TS: My biggest passion is history, so my favorites can change from day to day as I discover new and exciting things. Seriously. But if I had to pick one favorite book, it'd be WIND IN THE WILLOWS.

FWOMP: You've been a great advocate of your father's work. EAST OF EDEN was chosen as an Oprah Book Club pick and you were on her show recently. How did it feel for you to be on the Oprah Show in Salinas, a city that wasn't particularly happy with this book when it first came out?

TS: Times change. And sometimes they don't. They still have John Steinbeck book burnings in Boston every year. They hate him there. But in Salinas it felt . . . unique and right and wrong and everything all at once. The Oprah show was great for my dad's book, though. I mean, here's a black woman who's broken down all the rigid rules in our society and become a television success. I've never met a more focused person in my life. And she picked my dad's book and helped sell more of them now than at any other time in EAST OF EDEN's history. She made it a bestseller again. My dad would've been impressed, and I was too.
What you have to remember is what my dad did. He berated against the very society he grew up in. People felt like he'd betrayed them. John Steinbeck was in the business of growing crops when he wrote THE GRAPES OF WRATH!

FWOMP: Your father focused and wrote on controversial subject matter that seemed like taboo at the time. Do you plan to focus on controversial material in your own writings?

TS: Dad pictured himself more as a journalist than a novelist. He really enjoyed putting sociologically sensitive subjects under the microscope and then putting them into a fictional story.
As for me, my whole life is a controversy! The war, journalism, etc.. After seeing some of the crap that I've been witness to, I feel like mankind is as mad as any species God ever created. We are a tragedy. A walking, virulent tragedy [laughs].

FWOMP: Have you had a chance to read MONTEREY SHORTS?

TS: Yes I did. It was great. THE LIZARD CATCHER reminded me of my own days in Carmel Valley when I used to try and catch lizards.

FWOMP: I formed a critique group several years ago and we're still going strong, helping each other with prose, character development, plot problems and such. Have you ever belonged to a group like this?

TS: No. I'm not much of a group person unless someone else is buying the drinks. Except with this really great editor that I have, I don't discuss writing much. I'm somewhat of a loner when it comes to that kind of thing, because I feel that we - writers - are delicate creatures. I am. My dad never talked about writing as far as I can remember. He just . . . did it.