Steinbeck beautifully describes the lives and surroundings of these characters, so much so that you feel you can reach out and touch their them. Other than a few poignant sections, the joie de vivre that exudes from the pages belies the harshness of the struggle to put food on the table or a roof of some sort over their heads. You would think that a novel set in the depression with the central characters being a group of bums would be, in itself, depressing. But we are treated to vignettes of life amongst a range of locals, we are invited in to their lives and given an insight into the hard lives of the depression. Mack, Hazel, Jones and Eddie pop up throughout and provide much of the entertaining reading.

The thread that holds it all together are the ‘boys’ from the flophouse. Really it feels like a meander through the lives of these many and varied characters. The novel is barely a novel in the sense of having a plot. Doc is a marine biologist who owns and lives in his workshop at Western Biological, and then there are Mack and ‘the boys’ – squatters in Lee Chong’s warehouse known as the Palace Flophouse and Grill. Dora Flood is the local Madam and owner of the misnamed Bear Flag Restaurant, where her girls are available to the local population. Lee Chong is the local grocer and shopkeeper. It is the story of the locals on the Row. Specifically it is set in Monterey, California and one particular avenue which is colloquially known as Cannery Row for it’s rows of sardine canneries*. The novel was first published in 1945 but it is set during the Great Depression. And my review may be overly glowing as a result. Let me start off the review by saying outright – I loved this.

Sadly I moved on and Cannery Row had to wait until now. When I read Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men back in 2012 I meant to follow up immediately with this relatively slim novel.

Cannery row full book