An ‘Amiable’ Steinbeck, Discovered in Paris Work
John Steinbeck is best known for his quintessentially American classics like “The Grapes of Wrath” and “East of Eden.” But one of his short stories, now published in English for the first time, is not about arduous journeys or humanity’s capacity for cruelty. It is a funny tale about a chef whose cooking companion is a cat.
During a mid-20th-century stint in Paris, Steinbeck wrote a series of 17 short pieces for the newspaper Le Figaro. He composed them in English and they were translated into French. One of those submissions, a fictional piece called “The Amiable Fleas,” can be found in the new issue of The Strand Magazine, a literary quarterly based in Michigan.
The magazine has previously unearthed pieces by Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Chandler. In 2014, it featured another Steinbeck short story, one composed for a patriotic radio show during World War II, and read aloud by Orson Welles in a 1943 broadcast. Andrew F. Gulli, the Strand’s managing editor, hired a researcher to sift through the Harry Ransom Center, a rare manuscripts collection at the University of Texas at Austin.
“I read this one and I was like, ‘Oh my God,’” Mr. Gulli said of “The Amiable Fleas.” He added, “There was something universal about it with the gourmet, the cat, the family conflict and the tension.”
In the story, a fictional restaurant called The Amiable Fleas is situated along the Seine. It is run by a chef named Mr. Amité, who has received one Michelin star and is eager to earn another. “He’s very, very flustered about everything,” Mr. Gulli said. “He relies on his cat to taste the food and nod his approval or disapproval. The cat is a very magnificent cat named Apollo.”
On the day the Michelin inspector is expected to dine, there is a series of mishaps, and Mr. Amité steps on Apollo’s tail. The cat stalks off in apparent anger. With Apollo gone, the meal is a disaster. But then comes a plot twist, a second chance and a revelation about a secret ingredient.
“The Amiable Fleas” might seem like light fare for a writer known as a chronicler of suffering. But comedy was important to Steinbeck, said Susan Shillinglaw, former director of the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University in California. “He had a great sense of humor,” she said.
Steinbeck’s novels of the 1930s, like “Of Mice and Men” and “The Grapes of Wrath,” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, followed people who struggled around the time of the Depression.
The ’40s were a time of transition. Steinbeck wrote a travelogue, did some war reporting and finished a few novels.
Steinbeck married for the last time in 1950, published “East of Eden” in 1952 and traveled frequently with his wife, Elaine. Despite a lifetime of restlessness, Steinbeck’s love for Paris was evident, Dr. Shillinglaw said.
When he was writing for Le Figaro in 1954, she added, “he was probably a happy man.”