My Life With John Steinbeck

"For the first time the story of John Steinbeck's forgotten second wife unmentioned in standard editions of his classics such as The Grapes of Wrath. Their 1943 war time marriage ended when she divorced him in 1948. Smart, adventurous and in love, she at first matched Steinbeck's zest for 'son the road adventures,' but was then only too happy to settle down and make a home where he could write. Love and marriage were considered the appropriate vocation of women of her era. Gwyn paid a high price for her involvement with the restless, driven, genius John Steinbeck. This was a marriage which could not succeed despite her love for Steinbeck, the man and master storyteller. The book reveals the missing voice of Gwyn, during a six-year marriage which included the tumult of World War Two. When she met Steinbeck in 1939, Gwyn was a professional singer, working for CBS in Los Angeles. She was an independent young woman, lively and radiant in her love for the great man wooing her - fourteen years her senior. He was captivated by her beauty and magnetic presence. For women of her era, many of whom had to leave jobs after the war, marriage was considered a woman's true career - love was life. This journal is her story of that adventure, often 'son the road' with a restless Steinbeck, criss-crossing continents and making homes..."