"I can see no reason why I should not tell the family stories. They are just as good as they ever were and maybe as I go I will remember more and more of them. But I do know that I must put in all of the lore and anecdote I can. An many of my family stories amount to folklore and should be used for and by the boys [his sons]. Then they will know their family. I think that I will put a good deal of my mother and father also. It is time I wrote these things, else they will be gone because no one else will ever do them except me."—John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters

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Published 01/01/2006

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