“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream…its inhabitant are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody.”
A lot has changed in Monterey since John Steinbeck published Cannery Row in 1945. The fishing dried up. The canneries closed. Good hearted prostitutes, semi-literate roustabouts and Chinese grocers were replaced with tourists as numerous as the sardines that once populated these waters. But remnants of Steinbeck’s gritty depiction of life remain and one can still walk these streets to gather a sense of what inspired the author to “open the page and let the stories crawl in by themselves.”
I had the pleasure of staying at The Intercontinental The Clement Monterey to celebrate Stories of the Intercontinental Life, a partnership with Audible that offers guests a unique alternative to the traditional guide book. Curated by Brendan Francis Newnam of The Paris Review podcast, the collection of travel-inspired audiobooks pair with iconic destinations from around the globe. The idea is to provide the traveler with a new perspective and a deeper connection to the world.
To kick things off, Newnam led a literary salon with eminent Steinbeck scholar Susan Shillinglaw and Magnus Toren, executive director of The Henry Miller Memorial Library. Guests sipped on Cannery Row-inspired cocktails and discussed the merits of the novel, followed by dinner in The Library at C Restaurant.
A walking tour of Cannery Row revealed the locations that gave Steinbeck his inspiration: Lee Chong’s Grocery (or Wing Chong Market in reality), purveyor of Old Tennis Shoes Whiskey and fairly generous credit. La Ida Cafe (currently Austino’s Patisserie), where Eddie works and gathers dregs of cocktails into a jug for Mack and the boys. Tributes to the novel can be found peppered throughout the street from paintings to statues honoring the characters. We also caught a rare glimpse inside The Pacific Biological Laboratories of Ed Ricketts, who Steinbeck fictionalized as Doc.
The walls of the lab are plastered with photos of iconic musicians and celebrities. An old record player stands in the corner surrounded by shelves of books. The concrete backyard stands above the Pacific, with easy access to the tide pools below. In the basement, apothecary bottles and jars sit empty of their specimens and hazardous materials. Handwritten notes lay piled on the desk that would accompany Rickets and Steinbeck on their voyage to the Sea of Cortez. The lab illuminates how this friendship between a scientist and a writer would spark one another and inspire them both in their life’s work.
“It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely.”
We explored the Great Tide Pool in Pacific Grove with Susan Shillinglaw and her husband, marine biologist William Gilly, and their dog Charlie, who led the way across craggy cliffs and swirling water. I took off my shoes to dip my feet into the clear water and spent the next hour brushing errant pebbles off my skin. It was worth it. We spent the rest of the afternoon traversing the 17 Mile Drive, the scenic stretch of highway along the California coast, stopping for lunch at Sticks at The Links at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach.
At Monterey Bay Aquarium a school of sardines shimmer across the ceiling, swimming in a perpetual circle above your head. Neon jellyfish pulsate to create nature’s lava lamp. I spent a good portion of time staring at these creatures drifting into each other, mesmerized by their gelatinous bodies.
After spending the afternoon petting jellyfish and watching Green sea turtles and otters frolic in the sun, we had lunch at The Restaurant inside the aquarium. On the menu were sweet crab and asparagus canneloni, oyster tartare and grilled octopus. While I did grapple with some internal conflict, as if the Octopus lounging in his tank would somehow sense that I was now eating all of his friends, The Restaurant takes great effort to promote environmentally responsible fishing practices. All of the sea food served here is caught or farmed in ways that don’t harm the ocean.
The entire weekend was an immersive literary experience, and the reverence for Steinbeck could be felt throughout the city. The author once called early morning in Cannery Row “a time of magic.” I found myself at the hour of pearl on my way out of Monterey. I think he’d be happy to know it’s still the same.
Thank you to Intercontinental The Clement Monterey and Hawkins International PR for their support on this trip. Opinions, as always, are my own.
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