Steinbeck Today

In September 2006 Tony Blair ended his Labour Party conference speech by channeling Tom Joad: "Whatever you do, I'm always with you. Head and heart. Next year I won't be making this speech. But in the years to come, wherever I am, whatever I do I'm with you. Wishing you well, wanting you to win." (Excerpted from "Blair's pinched his swansong from The Grapes of Wrath," posted September 28, 2006, by Newkerala: http://www.newkerala.com)

—submitted by Michael Meyer

Peter Ames Carlin's Catch a Wave—the Rise, Fall & Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson (Rodale Books, 2006) begins with a quotation from the Grapes of Wrath: "The people in flight from the terror behind—strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever."

—submitted by Bill Groneman

A movie contract signed by author John Steinbeck fetched $24,000 at a Motion Picture and Television charity auction in New York on 25 January 2007. The contract was for the rights to Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath to Twentieth Century Fox. John Ford went on to direct the movie adaptation, which starred Henry Fonda, in 1940. The contract was the top item in the auction. It had been expected to sell for between $4,000 and $6,000. The second-largest winning bid was for a letter signed by Marilyn Monroe in 1947 shortly after she changed her name from Norma Jean Baker. The letter sold for $7,000. (from press accounts)

—submitted by Greta Manville

According to genealogists, Senator Barack Obama, who has written two autobiographical best-sellers, not only has blood ties to President Bush but also to Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. (Bob Secter, "All in the Family. . . if you look Hard Enough." Chicago Tribune 11 March 2007: Section 2, Perspective, 3.

—submitted by Michael Meyer

A special radio program called "Eternity" from Iran's Radio Goftegu highlighted American novelist and short story writer John Steinbeck March 5, 2007. The radio program explored themes in Steinbeck's fiction, especially how he "wrote about the ragged and despondent lives of the working class" and populated his fiction with "characters who struggle against their own fates." (From online posting http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=1581&sectionid=351020105 accessed 15 March 2007.)

—submitted by Greta Manville

The Norman, Oklahoma Transcript covered Pioneer Library System's Big Read project (an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest) and disclosed that a placemat campaign had been mounted in local restaurants to expose residents to The Grapes of Wrath. Almost a dozen area restaurants offered placemats as "appetizers" for the novel. Each of six placemats in the series features a different passage from the novel with commentary by Robert Con Davis-Undiano, dean of the Honors College and English professor at the University of Oklahoma. "The Great Passages placemats are designed to be read quickly and easily in one sitting," says Megan Beard, a Big Read coordinator with the Pioneer Library System. "We hope that diners will enjoy reading the passage while they are waiting for their orders and then discuss it over their meals." ("Local restaurants serving 'Grapes of Wrath.'" by M. Scott Carter The Norman Transcript, http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_068001603 accessed 15 March 2007.)

—submitted by Greta Manville

Parents and board members in the Fayette-Ware school district in Memphis, Tennessee, took objection last year to the assigning of Of Mice and Men to high school students. Parent Jerry Adair's request to ban the book was apparently the first in the high school's history. Commented school board member Robert Redditt, "If the man proves to me what he said on the book was true, then I will be for banning it." When asked, Redditt and Adair admitted they had done nothing more than skim Steinbeck's work. The school board ultimately declined to act on Adair's request. (Yann Ranaivo, "'Mice, Men' Facing Ban." Commercial Appeal 1 June 2006.)

—submitted by Joy Lindenfield

When Little Miss Sunshine...