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If you are one of those for whom this has been a winter of discontent, take heart: you’re sure to find kindred spirits at Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor this Saturday as several people, led by the shop’s former owner, Canio Pavone, read from the works of John Steinbeck about the village that was his home in the 1950s and ’60s.
“We want to do celebrations of authors with connections to Sag Harbor, and certainly Steinbeck was one of them,” said Canio’s co-owner Maryann Calendrille about how this event came about. “We thought it was appropriate to do it right on what would be his 108th birthday.”
Sag Harbor must be in a Steinbeck state of mind: Last weekend, the two screenings of the Picture Show at Bay Street were “Grapes of Wrath” and “Of Mice and Men.”
The writing career of John Steinbeck is usually associated with California, especially the Salinas Valley and its surroundings. “East of Eden,” “Tortilla Flat,” “The Red Pony,” and other well-known works are set in the Northern California where Steinbeck grew up and where he first gained recognition as one of America’s most popular and critically acclaimed writers.
But after the publication of “East of Eden” in 1952 and some lucrative work in Hollywood that included adapting “Eden” for the Elia Kazan movie version and writing the script for “Viva Zapata!” starring Marlon Brando, Mr. Steinbeck headed east and stayed here except for writing-related travels. He and his third wife, Elaine, lived in New York City and on eastern Long Island for the last 15 years of his life.
In September 1953, Steinbeck rented a large Victorian house in Sag Harbor, enticed east by friends who had summered in the Hamptons. With Elaine remaining in New York, he concentrated on finishing a play that would later evolve into the short novel “Sweet Thursday.” He wrote in a letter to Elizabeth Otis, his agent, “The fall is coming quickly, a chill in the air and a hoarse wind blowing over the water. This is my favorite time and I couldn’t be in a better place for it.”
He quickly fell in love with the village, but it wasn’t until 1955 that the Steinbecks decided to settle in Sag Harbor. After receiving a visit in New York from William Faulkner, the couple traveled east in February. They were shown a house in the Bay Point section that looked across the water to the village. While the real estate agent was extolling the virtues of that house, Mr. Steinbeck gazed out the window and saw another. Told it wasn’t for sale, the author insisted that the agent inquire anyway. It turned out that the owner was about to put the house on the market. The Steinbecks snapped it up.
That spring they worked on converting the summer house to a year-round home. The property came with a dock and they bought a boat. They moved in that June, and it was there in Bay Point where he lived and did much of his writing until his death in 1968.
Sag Harbor and its environs apparently gave Steinbeck something he had been seeking – a place surrounded by water, a reconnection to his Pacific roots, a more leisurely lifestyle to help him focus on writing, time to spend with his two sons and New York friends who had summer rentals or homes there, and access to activities he enjoyed. On July 5, 1955, he wrote to his longtime friend Toby Street, “This afternoon, we are taking our boat off Montauk Point to fish for blues. They are fine fighting fish and wonderful to eat and they are said to be running well now. This is fabulous boating country and fishing country, too.”
In Sag Harbor, the writer became a familiar figure and was involved in community events, such as the annual Whalers Festival. (He was chairman of the committee that organized it in the mid-’60s.) He and Elaine shopped at Schiavoni’s IGA and dined at Baron’s Cove restaurant. As he had done with the Salinas Valley, Mr. Steinbeck began to view the East End as a setting for writing. He first made notes for what would become “The Winter of Our Discontent” in 1957. He had just returned, exhausted, from Japan and was struggling with a project on the King Arthur legend. In 1958, he built a separate writing study on the Bay Point property. It looked out onto the bay and he christened it Joyous Garde after the castle to which Lancelot took Guinevere.
It wasn’t until early 1960, when he finally abandoned the King Arthur book (it would be published posthumously, in 1976), that the writing of “Winter” took off. It was an election year, and for that and other reasons Steinbeck was inspired to use what would be his last novel to examine and offer his opinions on the state of America, with Sag Harbor as a microcosm. It was also while writing the novel that he planned a three-month cross-country trip for later that year. It began and ended in Sag Harbor and would be described in “Travels With Charley.”
A draft of “Winter” was finished in July—the main character worked at a Main Street grocery store modeled on Schiavoni’s—and he sent it off to Ms. Otis. During the next two months he revised the manuscript. The novel completed, he drove away from Sag Harbor on September 23 on his long trip. “Winter” was published in June 1961. Though “Travels with Charley” was to be his last book of original material, the author continued to write about Sag Harbor in letters to friends and he continued to live there with Elaine until he was too ill and returned to New York City to be near his physicians.
This Saturday, readers will take excerpts from “Winter,” “Charley,” his letters, and a humorous essay, “My War With Ospreys,” that Mr. Steinbeck wrote not long after moving to Sag Harbor. Also expected are recollections by people who knew the author during his Sag Harbor years.
Mr. Pavone said he got involved in Saturday’s program not as an excuse to be back in the bookstore he bought in 1980 (and sold to Ms. Calendrille and Kathryn Szoka 11 years ago), because he is already at the store as a volunteer bookseller every Monday. This event enticed him because of his love for the author’s work.
“I especially like his letters because in them he wrote most personally and warmly about Sag Harbor,” Mr. Pavone said. “He’s from that generation of writers who wrote letters about their life and their work, as opposed to today when it’s done by e-mail and those messages disappear. And who knows, maybe the event will spark interest in reviving the John Steinbeck Award,” he added, referring to the award formerly given to one writer annually at the “Meet the Writers” Book Fair. The award has been in limbo since Long Island University ended its sponsorship of the event that was founded by Elaine Steinbeck and Elaine Benson, among others.
And, yes, Mr. Pavone will allow that he relishes opportunities to be back in his old shop. “It’s fun to see old acquaintances, especially the ones who thought I was dead or had moved to Italy permanently,” he said. “I am looking forward to being there to celebrate Steinbeck on Saturday. But I won’t stick around. I don’t want the owners to think I’m looking over their shoulders.”
The Steinbeck readings begin at 6 p.m. on Saturday, February 27, at the Sag Harbor bookstore. For more information, call Canio’s Books at 725-4926.
on Feb 23, 2010