Travels with Charley in Search of America

This 1962 travel narrative follows Steinbeck as he drives a camper truck, Rocinante, around the United States with his poodle Charley. The itinerary runs from Long Island through New England and the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest, then south along the coast and back east, with a tense passage through the segregated South. Encounters with waitresses, farmers, mobile-home dwellers, and political talkers supply the material. He measures how towns, speech, and landscape have changed since his earlier years and tests whether a national character can still be described. The book mixes road reportage, conversation, and reflection; some later readers have questioned how strictly factual every episode is.

Bound in image blocked blue cloth. Mid-blue endpapers printed in grey with an image. Dark blue slipcase.