Het leven van een aantal randfiguren van de maatschappij in een kustplaats in Californië wordt kleurrijk beschreven.

This insightful chronicle of Monterey's Cannery Row delves into the rich history of this fabled waterfront, combining both the development of the sardine industry and the lives of Steinbeck and marine biologist Ed Ricketts. Rare historical photographs and a final chapter on the building of the aquarium are included.

A group of California alcoholics, whores, and idlers form bonds of affection among themselves and with a biologist in post-World War II Monterey

Many of Rickett's letters discuss his studies of the Pacific littoral and his theories of "phalanx" and transcendence. Epistles to family members, often tender and humorous, add dimension and depth to Steinbeck's mythologized depictions of Ricketts." "Editor Katharine A. Rodger has enriched the correspondence with an introduction, a biographical essay, and a list of works cited. The book will be important for students of John Steinbeck and the development of 20th-century American fiction, as well as for those interested in the history of science, especially in the fields of marine biology and ecology."--Jacket.

Presenting a nuanced story of women, migration, community, industry, and civic life at the turn of the twentieth century, Carol Lynn McKibben's Beyond Cannery Row analyzes the processes of migration and settlement of Sicilian fishers from three villages in Western Sicily to Monterey, California--and sometimes back again. McKibben's analysis of gender and gender roles shows that it was the women in this community who had the insight, the power, and the purpose to respond and even prosper amid changing economic conditions. Vividly evoking the immigrants' everyday experiences through first-person accounts and detailed description, McKibben demonstrates that the cannery work done by Sicilian immigrant women was crucial in terms of the identity formation and community development. These changes allowed their families to survive the challenges of political conflicts over citizenship in World War II and intermarriage with outsiders throughout the migration experience. The women formed voluntary associations and celebrated festas that effectively linked them with each other and with their home villages in Sicily. Continuous migration created a strong sense of transnationalism among Sicilians in Monterey, which has enabled them to continue as a viable ethnic community today.

A beautiful debut set around the creation of the world-famous Monterey Bay Aquarium--and the last days of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row In 1940, fifteen year-old Margot Fiske arrives on the shores of Monterey Bay with her eccentric entrepreneur father. Margot has been her father's apprentice all over the world, until an accident in Monterey's tide pools drives them apart and plunges her head-first into the mayhem of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. Steinbeck is hiding out from his burgeoning fame at the raucous lab of Ed Ricketts, the biologist known as Doc in Cannery Row. Ricketts, a charismatic bohemian, quickly becomes the object of Margot's fascination. Despite Steinbeck's protests and her father's misgivings, she wrangles a job as Ricketts's sketch artist and begins drawing the strange and wonderful sea creatures he pulls from the waters of the bay. Unbeknownst to Margot, her father is also working with Ricketts. He is soliciting the biologist's advice on his most ambitious and controversial project to date: the transformation of the Row's largest cannery into an aquarium. When Margot begins an affair with Ricketts, she sets in motion a chain of events that will affect not just the two of them, but the future of Monterey as well. Alternating between past and present, Monterey Bay explores histories both imagined and actual to create an unforgettable portrait of an exceptional woman, a world-famous aquarium, and the beloved town they both call home.