Native Grandson 2022: County Londonderry Celebrates John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck’s blarney-free critique of Depression-era California and post-war America continues to engage fans, scholars, and presenters in disparate places, from Steinbeck’s native state to his grandfather Samuel Hamilton’s Northern Ireland. After noting that Steinbeck visited Hamilton’s birthplace in rural Limavady in 1952, a January 28, 2022 online article entitled “John Steinbeck Festival coming to Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre” offers a month-long schedule of local activities kicking off on February 5 and including weekly lectures and concerts, Dust Bowl photography, and a book cover design contest for schoolchildren reading Steinbeck for the first time. Articles in Steinbeck Review on “Dust Bowl Refugees as Reference for Today,” by Kimberly Wright, and “Travels with Charley as American Picaresque,” by Carter Davis Johnson, demonstrate Steinbeck’s enduring attraction for bright young scholars turned on to Steinbeck by their own early reading. Wook-Dong Kim’s essay on “John Steinbeck and Korean Connections” reminds us that Steinbeck’s sympathies and appeal were always international, and Robert DeMott’s review of Chasing Steinbeck’s Ghost—Bill Steigerwald’s rigorously researched correction of the chronology of Travels with Charley—shows that investigation need not be limited to scholars where John Steinbeck is concerned.