Sweet Thursday

by John Steinbeck

[jamiereadthis]

Had I known this was a sequel to Cannery Row, I would have read this the minute I finished Cannery Row. (How did I not know there was a sequel to Cannery Row!) But, thank you, Elmore Leonard. I decided that this year, I’m taking my favorite authors and reading the books they’ve read. To follow that thread, that slow-burn rapture, the world unfolding from a singular point of view. And thus: I found Sweet Thursday, the sequel to Cannery Row, from the man that makes more sense than anybody that he’s read Sweet Thursday, the sequel to Cannery Row.

There’s a line in Cannery Row I want to use every time I talk about one of Elmore’s books. It goes: “Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing.”

And Sweet Thursday— it’s Cannery Row squared, just with all the more joy. It’s hilarious. It’s mad and brilliant. It’s a crackpot little satire with all the love in the world. I mean, find me a book these days where that doesn’t apply? It’s one I don’t have much interest in reading. Give me the sons of bitches and martyrs and holy men; a whorehouse and a flophouse, let me call it ‘home, sweet home’ and mean the same thing.

“She’s making a patsy of you,” said the Patrón.
“People got to be a patsy now and then,” said Fauna. “You never feel real good if you never been a sucker.”