You're a Good Man, Charley Steinbeck
In 1960, a boy you might've heard of and his dog toured America. This isn't John Steinbeck's story. This is Charley's
For someone with the kind of literary clout he has, half of the writing team of John Steinbeck’s seminal road novel tends to get left out.
His name was Charley.
Short for Charles le Chien, according to Steinbeck.
Charley, a blue standard poodle, was born in Bercy, on the outskirts of Paris, France (not the one in Texas) in 1950. He was, as the author described him, proud of his looks (whether in his very traditional (thicker than today’s) lion cut, or in his “puppy cut,” as featured on the Penguin cover of Travels with Charley in Search of America:
Charley appears on the cover of that edition as brown — but, interestingly, that was an error in colorizing the photo — that was originally in black and white. Charley was, like John, an older man in that photo. Steinbeck was 58 and Charley was 10, at the time Steinbeck wrote Travels with Charley.
The Frenchman would’ve had an aged, dusky blue coat that may have seemed lighter brown in the lighting of the picture.
And he had another particular quirk. He spoke French. As Steinbeck wrote of him, “While he knows a little poodle-English, he responds quickly only to commands in French. Otherwise he has to translate, and that slows him down.”
Most of what we know of Charley comes directly from Travels. It reads like any boy who loves his dog would talk about him. And that’s interesting, considering Steinbeck could be a little polarizing in his life.
By turns, he was called compassionate, introverted, charming, antisocial, a man who loved a good joke and a prank, a talker about anything he was interested in, and an attentive, empathetic listener. But generally, a man who preferred being an observer who appreciated the natural world, rather than people.
Steinbeck’s wife, Elaine (a brilliant, strong Texas woman in her own right) described him similarly. Though she loved him, he could be difficult — especially when he was writing. But, it’s thanks to her that we know a little more about John’s relationship with who was presumably “her” dog, Charley.
In a 1997 interview with The East Hampton Star’s Patsy Southgate, she talked about one of John’s…unique methods, and his total introverted lifestyle when writing, with…one exception.
“He was a difficult man when he was writing,” Elaine told the Star. “
“He never breakfasted with the family, but drove up to Main Street with [Charley]…to eat and talk with the fishermen. Then he'd hole up in [sic]Joyous Gard1 with his yellow pads and two dozen sharpened pencils, and work.”
Steinbeck and Charley were inseparable, and Charley was one of the few people who got a pass into John’s castle when he was working.
From the origins of Travels with Charley in 1959, his dog was always meant to go with him. Just..nobody let Charley in on that, apparently. Steinbeck had decided to use a camper — rare, at that time — for the trip. He dubbed the camper Rocinante2, built on a three-quarter ton Chevrolet pickup truck chassis and outfitted for travel, and began to pack for the trip.
This made Charley a nervous wreck, seemingly worried John would leave without him.
“During the weeks of preparation he was underfoot the whole time and made a damned nuisance of himself. He took to hiding in the truck, creeping in and trying to make himself look small.”
But, the bleu boy was always on the passenger manifest for Steinbeck’s planned 11,000-some mile voyage around the country.
“Charley is a born diplomat. He prefers negotiation to fighting, and properly so, since he is very bad at fighting. Only once in his ten years has he been in trouble – when he met a dog who refused to negotiate. Charley lost a piece of his right ear that time.
But he is a good watch dog – has a roar like a lion, designed to conceal from night-wandering strangers the fact that he couldn't bite his way out of a cornet de papier. He is a good friend and traveling companion, and would rather travel about than anything he can imagine.”
— John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America
Steinbeck described Charley as brave. Scrappy when he needed to be, a good watchdog, but a born diplomat. He’d describe Charley in Travels as his ambassador, helping break the ice with locals they encountered on their expedition.
That boy and his dog set off in the fall of 1960, heading west from New York across the country. Their return route would take them down through California, and back east through the Southwest and Deep South, before making their way back up the East Coast.
After making it back home, Steinbeck would compile everything he’d written, and over the course of several months, write down what would become Travels with Charley. Mostly about his reflections on America and the people he presumably met (that’s a whole story in and of itself), he interspersed Travels with a few stories about Charley. One of them will sound familiar to any of us who’ve known, and loved, our furry navigators:
"Charley likes to get up early, and he likes me to get up early, too. And why shouldn’t he? Right after his breakfast he goes back to sleep. Over the years he has developed a number of innocent-appearing ways to get me up.
He can shake himself and his collar loud enough to wake the dead.
If that doesn’t work he gets a sneezing fit. But perhaps his most irritating method is to sit quietly beside the bed and stare into my face with a sweet and forgiving look on his face; I come out of deep sleep with the feeling of being looked at.
But I have learned to keep my eyes tight shut. If I even blink he sneezes and stretches, and that night’s sleep is over for me. Often the war of wills goes on for quite a time, I squinching my eyes shut and he forgiving me, but he nearly always wins.
He likes traveling so much he wanted to get started early, and early for Charley is the first tempering of darkness with the dawn."
Steinbeck knew he was dying at the outset of the trip — and arguably why he’d wanted to make it in the first place. As it turned out, sadly, so was Charley. He made his final journey past the rainbow bridge just a year later, in 1961.
And perhaps most telling of how much John loved him — he was buried in the family plot, at the Steinbecks’ cottage in Pacific Grove, California. John wouldn’t last much longer, either. He passed at 66, in 1968.
Rocinante though — is still around. Their trusty steed was saved, and restored, and is currently on display at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California.
Travels with Our Best Friends
Have you traveled with your best friend? Tell me about them! As you might’ve noticed, I love a good critter story.
Ever wonder about what it’s like to travel with your pets? What questions do you have?
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Steinbeck loved his every day literary references: from a camper named Rocinante to his office named Joyeux Garde/Joyous Guard, after the Arthurian legends. Joyeux Garde was the name of Sir Launcelot du Lac’s castle.
Rocinante was the name of another literary sidekick — the trusty steed of the courageous Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote.