SOURCE: A review of John Steinbeck, in American Literature, Vol. 67, No. 4, December, 1995, pp. 881-2.

In the following review, Hearle offers a negative assessment of John Steinbeck.

The British edition of this book [John Steinbeck] contained so many errors that this American edition was delayed almost a year, and still there are so many problems with this biography that its value as a scholarly reference is negligible. At his best Parini merely rewrites Jackson Benson’s earlier and much superior biography of Steinbeck; at his worst Parini displays an almost humorous ignorance of California geography and of Steinbeck’s work. In his discussion of Steinbeck’s books, Parini usually manages to summarize reasonably well the critical wisdom of the early 1980s; however, he gets into trouble when he doesn’t stick closely to his sources. For example, according to Parini, Pirate in Tortilla Flat is a schemer who outwits...