Friend of GDP Thomas Steinbeck Releases New Novella, Cabbages and Kings

Son of The Grapes of Wrath author John Steinbeck, Thomas Steinbeck, has just released a new novella Cabbages and Kings for Barnes and Noble's Nook. Thomas was kind enough to write a introductory note for our publication of Steinbeck: Citizen Spy and we can't wait to read his new work.

Cabbages and Kings follows Titus Gatelock.  He's well known to just about everybody around King City who possessed a horse, a mule, or any close approximation with “four legs and a whiny”; though this commonly used phrase would be highly misleading in the case of Mr. Gatelock. Titus was acknowledged principally as an exceptional craftsman in all manner of fine equestrian leatherwork and a harness maker without peer in that part of California. But people knew him in that context alone. In all other respects, Titus Gatelock’s life, past and present, was an absolute mystery, and not just of the quaint and curious variety, but an enigma that became so tantalizing over the years, that it begged every kind of speculation by every category of citizen. And if the truth were told, old Titus made a point of doing nothing whatsoever to alleviate this confusion. In fact, his oblique and sometimes clipped responses to public curiosity only heightened the mystery, in some cases to the point of public irritation. He did this by never affirming or denying anything people said about him, no matter how unlikely or absurd.

It all started to get out of hand when, at the point of frustration, a fellow tradesman tried to get a rise out of Titus by saying that he’d overheard that Titus had once been a dangerous bandit who rode with the notorious Jose Baraga when the Sacramento gold train was robbed back in 1891. Titus just looked up, smiled, and said that he had heard that particular story as well. When the meddler looked surprised and asked whether the story was true or not, Titus just shook his head and said that the truth was hard to pin down after all these years. He said that it seemed to him as though people just made up their truths as they went along. He closed down further discussion with, “There’s real history and real truth out there everywhere, but when it bumps heads with a whopping good yarn that everybody enjoys, then the truth is sure to cross the line in last place every time.”

Steinbeck: Citizen Spy by Brian Kannard

This changes everything we thought we knew about John Steinbeck. After languishing in the CIA’s archives for 60 years, a letter is uncovered in John Steinbeck’s own hand that shatters everything history tells us about the author’s life. Written in 1952, to CIA Director Walter Bedell Smith, Steinbeck makes an offer to become an asset for the Agency during a trip to Europe later that year. More shocking than Steinbeck’s letter is Smith’s reply accepting John’s proposal. 

Discovered by author Brian Kannard, these letters create the tantalizing proposal that John Steinbeck was, in fact, a CIA spy. Utilizing information from Steinbeck’s FBI file, John’s own correspondence, and interviews with John’s son Thomas Steinbeck, playwright Edward Albee, a former CIA intelligence officer, and others, Steinbeck: Citizen Spy uncovers the secret life of American cultural icon and Nobel Prize–winner, John Steinbeck. 

•Why did the FBI admit to destroying elements of Steinbeck’s FBI file when it is accessible through their “FOIA Vault” website?

•Did Steinbeck actively gather information for the intelligence community during his 1947 and 1963 trips to the Soviet Union?

•Why was the controversial author of The Grapes of Wrath never called before the House Select Committee on Un-American Activities, despite alleged ties to Communist organizations?

•Did the CIA influence Steinbeck to produce Cold War propaganda as part of Operation MOCKINGBIRD?

•Why did the CIA admit to the Church Committee in 1975 that Steinbeck  was a subject of their illegal mail-opening program known as HTLINGUAL?

These and a host of other resources leave little doubt that there are depths yet unplumbed in the life of one of America’s most treasured authors. 

Just how heavily was Steinbeck involved in CIA operations? What did he know? And how much did he sacrifice for his country? Steinbeck: Citizen Spy brings us one step closer to the truth. This text includes a note in the introduction from Thomas Steinbeck.

To find out more about Steinbeck: Citizen Spy, visit the book's website or the Grave Distractions Publications page.