It's true in the truest sense of the word.

Don't care. Poodle. All you need to know. Poodles are awesome and I will fight anyone who bashes on Charley.

Do you hear me? Poodles.

Goddamn right.

The most important thing to know is that memoir is not held to the same standards of documentary truth as is autobiography which is not held to the same standards as journalism (should be). Memoir is a literary form based on memory. Within a memoir you have every permission to compress characters, reorder events, edit others out, exaggerate for effect, and yes, even get shit verifiably wrong because memory is fallible.

Sometimes on Twitter when I say I'm eating at a place or doing something, it's like, 3 hours after I've done it, but I make like I'm doing it right now so I seem cooler and more popular.

This is my favorite book of all time. It is not my favorite book of all time because of its veracity as a piece of journalism. It's my favorite book because of its other, arguably more important truths about the United States and the rest of the world. It could be fiction and it wouldn't change a damn thing about its value for me.

In conclusion, fuck libertarian killjoys.

Oprah will make Steinbeck come on her show and apologize for lying to her.

WA-related, a month ago the radio show Studio 360 aired the Spokane segment of the series where they retraced a few stops in the book:

http://www.studio360.org/tags/travels%20…

It's like David Sedaris says: "When people ask me if these stories are true, I reply that they are true enough."

POODLE.

You only have to look in your own piece here to see mythologizing. And you do a very strange thing interpreting an "anyone can do what I did" statement to be exactly the opposite of what the text says.

You are a pretentious idiot.

Which is probably why the Stranger keeps you on. I had hopes that Goldy would class the place up, but I guess that takes time.

It takes some chutzpa to complain about fiction passing as facts in an article in Reason, a publication that specializes in pawning off fiction as fact.

If indeed Steinbeck did falsify or simple make up those experiences, he should have published it as a novel. But he didn't. This guy may or may not be telling the truth (who can possibly know now, since Steinbeck and those close to him have been dead for years?) but an account of a journey should be an account of a journey, not just a bunch of stories.

Crap now I want a poodle! I love love love that book. Every now and then a guy comes to where I work driving a small truck with a big canopy and a light brown standard poodle in the passenger seat. The first time I saw them I stopped in my tracks and really had to fight the urge to go talk to him about the book. TV Dinner @ 1 gets it right again-it's true in all the ways it counts.

When people come forward with revelations abput long-dead people, the first thing you have to ask yourself is what is in for this person: Money? Fame? Justice and/or vengence?

I can't see where this would avenge any wrongdoing (other than some silly author jealously or something like that), so it must be either fame or money that drives him.

Therefore it's all silly gossip against someone who is not around to defend himself. Steigerwald should be ashamed of himself.

I'm sure the poodle was actually constipated, so who cares about the rest?

Seriously, who cares. Next, after years of inspired detective-grunting, they're going to tell us that "East of Eden" was actually inspired by the Bible and not an original story.

This is important to people who don't understand the difference between a painting and a photograph.

@20- When someone tells you to look at their really cool painting, and you realize it's a photograph, it is important. Doesn't mean it's a bad piece of art, but it is important.

East of Eden was partially about Steinbeck's family, and since I was born in Salinas, I recognized some of the names of characters as being real people. However, it was a biblical story.

The Grapes of Wrath conflated the stories of "tractored out" people and people who stayed in the Dust Bowl (as in The Worst Hard Time).

But both of those were novels, not purported to be true accounts. Travels with Charley was. @21 is right; love poodles all you wish, but memoirs aren't supposed to be novels.

All you young wankers who don't know fiction from nonfiction, or don't care which is which, or who assume you know my motives or my methods or anything about my politics, please go to www.travelswithoutcharley2010.com and read some stuff before you accuse me of whatever new silly things come to your tiny fingers.

LOL - John Steinbeck did stay at my mother's motel on Mt. Hood, OR, when he was writing that book but it was certainly far from a "luxury hotel"!! The "Mountain Air Motel" was little more than a few rustic cabins. My brother and I were the motel's only "staff" (our mother came up on weekends to bring groceries because she owned and ran another business in Portland), and, as my brother and I were young teens who had just started high school, our concept of "clean" may have been a bit relative. Anyone in their right mind would have stayed at a motel though, given the fact at that elevation it can get very cold at night - especially in the fall. I'm trying to recall now if his visit was in the fall - but I think it was. I was irritated when someone came to the door because I was engrossed in a book by one of my favorite authors, John Steinbeck. (Hiking or reading were two of the few recreational activities to be enjoyed in a rural mountain area without the use of a car - or the ability to drive even if we'd had one and the money to fill the gas tank.) I had the book, "The Winter of Our Discontent", in my hands when I answered the bell; once Mr. Steinbeck had signed the register, I looked at his name - and asked, "Are you the same man who wrote this book?"

I've digressed. How in heavens name could Steinbeck have met the people he met if he'd stayed in his camper?! To meet the locals - he needed to encounter as many people as possible at whatever businesses were established in the area. The Mt. Hood Community might have been a rural area but it was one that attracted a lot of tourists to Oregon's best ski areas - Timberline and Government Camp. Certainly Timberline and Government Camp would've been great places to meet people - - people from all over the United States and the world!! Even the employees at the mountain's ski resorts tended to be temporary employees - if not "temporary Oregonians". If Mr. Steinbeck had been interested only in writing fiction or only in his own comfort, however, he would have stayed at The Timberline Lodge, a beautiful, comfortable and historic lodge with fine dining available too.

LOL - John Steinbeck did stay at my mother's motel on Mt. Hood, OR, when he was writing that book but it was certainly far from a "luxury hotel"!! The "Mountain Air Motel" was little more than a few rustic cabins. My brother and I were the motel's only "staff" (our mother came up on weekends to bring groceries because she owned and ran another business in Portland), and, as my brother and I were young teens who had just started high school, our concept of "clean" may have been a bit relative. Anyone in their right mind would have stayed at a motel though, given the fact at that elevation it can get very cold at night - especially in the fall. I'm trying to recall now if his visit was in the fall - but I think it was. I was irritated when someone came to the door because I was engrossed in a book by one of my favorite authors, John Steinbeck. (Hiking or reading were two of the few recreational activities to be enjoyed in a rural mountain area without the use of a car - or the ability to drive even if we'd had one and the money to fill the gas tank.) I had the book, "The Winter of Our Discontent", in my hands when I answered the bell; once Mr. Steinbeck had signed the register, I looked at his name - and asked, "Are you the same man who wrote this book?"

I've digressed. How in heavens name could Steinbeck have met the people he met if he'd stayed in his camper?! To meet the locals - he needed to encounter as many people as possible at whatever businesses were established in the area. The Mt. Hood Community might have been a rural area but it was one that attracted a lot of tourists to Oregon's best ski areas - Timberline and Government Camp. Certainly Timberline and Government Camp would've been great places to meet people - - people from all over the United States and the world!! Even the employees at the mountain's ski resorts tended to be temporary employees - if not "temporary Oregonians". If Mr. Steinbeck had been interested only in writing fiction or only in his own comfort, however, he would have stayed at The Timberline Lodge, a beautiful, comfortable and historic lodge with fine dining available too.

Hey Sassy -- If you are serious -- as in telling the truth -- about your encounter with Mr. Steinbeck, please contact me at xpaperboy@gmail.com. I'm Bill Steigerwald, the crazy person who followed Steinbeck's "Travels With Charley" route and discovered his nonfiction book was a load of fibs/fiction.

c