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Bill Rich
Thomas Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath: The wife of Santa Barbaran Thomas Steinbeck, stripped of his rights to 10 of his father’s books by a new court ruling, charged today that John Steinbeck’s late wife Elaine committed “fraud.”
On advice of his attorney, Thomas Steinbeck wasn’t able to speak to me. But I talked to his wife, Gail, who accused Thomas’s late stepmother, Elaine, of committing fraud against Thomas and Thomas’s niece Blake Smyle by wrongly cutting them out of copyright interests.
In a statement released today, Thomas Steinbeck said, "My father would be deeply saddened to hear that the guardianship of his copyrights has been placed in the hands of strangers and stripped from the care of those he loved --- his son and grandchildren."
A federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday reversed a 2006 ruling that had awarded Thomas and his late brother’s daughter, Smyle, publishing rights to The Grapes of Wrath and other early works. The ruling leaves the rights in the hands of the Penguin Group and heirs of Elaine Steinbeck, the author’s third wife, and takes away the rights of Steinbeck’s only blood heirs. Elaine died in 2003.
But the litigation isn’t over. “While we're disappointed with this result, the appeals court decision actually makes our original lawsuit more substantial, and so we look forward to moving forward in the trial court to have our damage claims vindicated,” said Mark Lee, Thomas’ attorney.
John Steinbeck (center) with son John IV, and LBJ.
John Steinbeck, who wrote movingly of the Salinas Valley, won the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes for his body of work that included Of Mice and Men and The Red Pony. Thomas Steinbeck is working on his own third novel, his wife said. He is the author of Down to a Soundless Sea (Ballantine Publishing, 2002.) Smyle is the daughter of John’s other son, the late John IV.
John Steinbeck’s most famous work was The Grapes of Wrath, a powerful novel about the plight of migrant workers in California during the Depression. He died in 1968. The book was turned into a classic movie starring Henry Fonda.
The appeals court ruling said the earlier federal judge misapplied the complex copyright law and sent the case back to the lower court with instructions to leave the rights with various individuals and organizations, including Elaine’s heirs, her sister, four children, and grandchildren.
“We’re looking at all our options,” Gail Steinbeck told me.
“I think it’s a terrible thing,” said Santa Barbaran Barnaby Conrad, longtime friend of John Steinbeck. Conrad, who also knows Thomas and Gail, recalled that—aside from how his world changed after he published the blockbuster book Matador, about the death of legendary bullfighter Manolete—the “greatest thing that ever happened to me” was a letter from John Steinbeck.
Conrad was a young teacher in San Francisco and struggling writer doing magazine pieces. Then came Matador. “I picked up a copy of the Saturday Review of Literature in which they asked ten authors what their favorite books of the year were. Steinbeck’s was Matador.
The Grapes of Wrath
“I wrote a gushing letter to Steinbeck.” Conrad recited the author’s reply by heart: “He replied, ‘Dear Conrad. I like bullfighting. To me, it is a lonely, formal, anguished microcosm of what happens to every man, even in an office, strangled by the glue on the envelopes. In the bullring, he manages to survive for a while --- sometimes.”
Steinbeck added that he was going to the Virgin Islands and invited Conrad to join him. He did “and we became fast friends. And we made a movie together, Flight.” It was based on one of Steinbeck’s short stories.
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Columnist Barney Brantingham can be reached at barney@independent.com or (805) 965-5205. He writes online columns throughout the week and a print column for Thursdays.
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