Gwyn Conger, John Steinbeck's second wife, died in 1975. Douglas Brown, the journalist she hired and fired to ghost-write her memoir, died in 1997. Brown's unpublished manuscript of the interrupted project, left to a relative in England, eventually came to the attention of a businessman named Bruce Lawson, who has chosen to resurrect the abortive effort as a self-published book using Gwyn's byline. Issues of ownership and ethics aside, the result represents a compendium of errors, inconsistencies, and indiscretions fully justifying Steinbeck's insistence that he be judged by the quality and truthfulness of his own writing rather than the half-truths and false memories purveyed by others. Cashing in on “the story of John Steinbeck's forgotten wife,” Lawson's book presents a challenge to reader patience and credulity, with a preface and cover blurb by Jay Parini praising its “authenticity” and significance as a “genuinely important literary discovery”—claims undercut by the troubled...
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