num_pages: 185
description: Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, including longtime friend Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Dora, Mack and his boys, Lee Chong, and the other characters in this world where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his most humorous and poignant works. In her introduction, Susan Shillinglaw shows how the novel expresses, both in style and theme, much that is essentially Steinbeck: “scientific detachment, empathy toward the lonely and depressed…and, at the darkest level…the terror of isolation and nothingness.”
language: English
title: Cannery Row
titlecomplete: Cannery Row (Cannery Row, #1)
characters: Dora, Hughie, "Doc" Bradley Stanwick, Hazel, Mack, Cannery Row, Lee Chong, Eddie, Gay, Eddie, Doc, Dora, Lee Chong, Mack
genres: Fiction, American, The United States Of America, Classic Literature, Literature, Classics, Novels, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 133301
places: California, Monterey, California, The United States of America
series: Cannery Row
publisher: Penguin Classics