The Footnote Finds a Home

Ritchie Lovejoy's book is in the library; or, er, it will be soon

(Left to right) Monterey Librarian Brian Edwards, Joe Livernois, California History Librarian Andres Garza

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*UPDATE* The book was placed successfully in the hands of Library Director Brian Edwards this afternoon.

I indulged my inner history geek while serving as the middle man in a sweet transaction on Wednesday at the Monterey Public Library.

Because, more than eighty years after Ritch Lovejoy wrote his would-be Great American Novel on John Steinbeck’s dime, the book finally found its way into a library. I was able to present Lovejoy’s Taku Wind to the library in a small ceremony on Wednesday. I think of it as my very small brush with a footnote to the lore of John Steinbeck and to the sad legacy of Ritch Lovejoy.

The presentation was impromptu. I pulled out the book from my computer bag and handed it to Andres Garza, the California History librarian, during my presentation as a featured speaker at the library on Wednesday. I was there to talk about something else — the Pilon character in Tortilla Flat — as part of the ongoing Cannery Row Days program. But I had time near the end of the program, and so I made the Taku Wind presentation.

I’ve had a copy of the book — one of only 48 in print — since July, always meaning to deliver it to the library. Lovejoy’s son, John, sent it to me 10 months ago and honored me by allowing me to tell his father’s bittersweet story.

The story is but a passing footnote in the pantheon of Steinbeck history. But it loomed dark and large in the Lovejoy family.

A link to the full incredible tale is here. But this is the summary: Steinbeck gifted Ritch Lovejoy his $1,000 Pulitzer Prize money and let Ritch and his wife live in his Pacific Grove home for a year so that Ritchie could write his book. The finished manuscript, Taku Wind, was the result of Steinbeck’s largesse. But Ritch couldn’t get the book published, and that failure weighed heavily. Steinbeck’s generosity had backfired on Ritch, and he was forced to confront what he thought was a profound public failure as a writer and as a human. An air of melancholy hung over Lovejoy for the rest of his short life. Last year Lovejoy’s son printed his father’s work of fiction in a very limited edition, simply to honor his father.

I’ve been meaning to pass the copy John Lovejoy sent me to the library, but I’ve been waiting for just the right moment. Wednesday felt like the right time, because it allowed me to honor Ritch Lovejoy by telling his story in front of an appreciative crowd.

It felt sorta special, being able to serve as the middle man between John Lovejoy, who lives way up in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and the Monterey Public Library. Taku Wind is a peculiar little piece of local and literary history. It deserves to be preserved, and the library’s California History room is exactly the right place.

That is, if the library ever actually gets the book. You see, I handed Taku Wind to Garza on Wednesday during the presentation, but it somehow ended up in my computer bag and not in the library. I discovered the book in the bag about two hours after I returned home from the library event.

I’ve tried to recreate the circumstances of how the book ended up in my computer bag. And I think this is what happened:

I had the copy of Taku Wind in my hand when we posed for the photo (above). But then someone probably said something that flattered me, and it got me flustered and blithery and then all the brain cells poured out of my cranium and spilled to the floor, and so I stuffed the book in the computer bag, even though inside the computer bag is not where it belonged. It belongs in the library. In fact, I had taken the book to the library specifically so the library could have it. At some point I placed the book in the hands of the proper librarian, and yet somehow I came home with it.

Anyway, I’ll run the book over to the library sometime today. I promise.

But who knows? I’m starting to learn that anything can happen with the Taku Wind.