When he was almost sixty years old worried that he might have lost touch with the sights the sounds & the essence of America's people Steinbeck took note of his itchy feet & prepared to travel He was accompanied by his French poodle Charley diplomat & watchdog across the states of America from Maine to California Moving through the woods & deserts dirt tracks & highways to large cities & glorious wildernesses Steinbeck observed
- with remarkable honesty & insight with a humorous & sometimes sceptical eye
- America & the Americans who inhabited it What he saw was a lonely generous nation too packed with individuals for single judgements; what he saw made him proud angry sympathetic & elated His vision of how the world was changing still speaks to us prophetically through the decades