@infiniteb88ks: In 1958, John Steinbeck received an urgent letter. Thom was fourteen, at Eaglebrook, a boarding school in Massachusetts. He had written home to say he had fallen in love with a girl named Susan. Steinbeck answered the same morning. He was 56, living in New York, four years from the Nobel Prize. He begins by saying they had the letter that morning, that he will answer from his side, and that Elaine will write separately from hers. Elaine was Steinbeck's third wife. Thom's mother was his second. That matters, because the man telling his son that nothing good gets away had let a fair amount get away himself. His first marriage, to Carol, ended after thirteen years. His second, to Gwyn, ended in 1948 in a divorce bitter enough that he left the country afterwards. Thom and his brother John were four and two. They grew up between coasts and boarding schools. Elaine, who married him in 1950, was the one that held. So this is not a man handing down wisdom he came by easily. It is a man who had got it wrong twice, watching his son feel it for the first time, and working very hard not to say anything that would make it smaller. He doesn't tell Thom what to do. He tells him the feeling is good. That saying so does no harm, as long as you remember the other person may be shy. That it may not be returned, and that this takes nothing away from it. That the worst thing he could do is hurry. Thom grew up to be a writer too. He published his first book at 58 and died in 2016. The letter was printed in 1975, seven years after Steinbeck's death, in a collection Elaine helped edit. Elaine, who wrote her own letter to Thom that same morning. He signed it Fa. This is the back half of the letter. The whole thing is in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, and it's worth reading. If you've made it this far, thank you. And if you're a lover of literature, follow us. We're just getting started. #johnsteinbeck #letter #loveletter #bookstagram #romance

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Thursday 03 September 2026 18:44:26 GMT