Steinbeck Laughing: Travels with Charley as American Picaresque

Abstract:Since the publication of Bill Steigerwald’s Dogging Steinbeck, some commentators have exclaimed outrage at the discovered fictional embellishments in Travels with Charley. Steigerwald concludes that Steinbeck’s trans-American vagabonding was a literary fraud. Others have defended the work’s persisting merit, acknowledging the artistic license which Steinbeck invokes. A byproduct of the debate is the new challenge of determining a fitting genre for the text. This essay proposes that Travels is best understood as a picaresque novel. Specifically, Steinbeck creates an American picaresque that embraces the elision of fact and fiction, providing social commentary through the eyes of a wandering adventurer. In order to situate the book within the genre, the essay discusses Travels in relation to Royall Tyler’s The Algerine Captive, perhaps the first American picaresque novel. While both texts align with the foundational elements of the genre, they maintain a distinctively American element, an optimistic call for national unity along with a conception of a shared identity. By understanding Travels within the American picaresque tradition, scholars can circumvent the largely inconsequential arguments about degrees of factuality, allowing the rich cultural commentary to occupy the forefront of interpretation.