Down to a Soundless Sea - Hardcover

“Thomas Steinbeck writes with grace, authority, and passion. If John Steinbeck were my father, I would not have the courage to write a laundry list or a letter to the editor. But Thomas Steinbeck inherited his father’s great love of story. It is a grand thing to have a Steinbeck back in American letters.”
—PAT CONROY
“These tough, unsparing stories are written as if they were lived, not imagined, by their author. Thomas Steinbeck has found his own voice and he exults in the sound of it. This is authentic, honest American writing. The kind of writing a father would be proud of.”
—TERRENCE MCNALLY
“Thomas Steinbeck’s stories breathe vivid new life into nineteenth-century California, and bring to mind the pleasures of such writers as Hamlin Garland, Jack London, and Stephen Crane. This is a splendidly assured and convincing debut.”
—DAN CHAON
Author of the National Book Award Finalist "Among the Missing

"Thomas Steinbeck writes with grace, authority, and passion. If John Steinbeck were my father, I would not have the courage to write a laundry list or a letter to the editor. But Thomas Steinbeck inherited his father's great love of story. It is a grand thing to have a Steinbeck back in American letters."
--PAT CONROY

"These tough, unsparing stories are written as if they were lived, not imagined, by their author. Thomas Steinbeck has found his own voice and he exults in the sound of it. This is authentic, honest American writing. The kind of writing a father would be proud of."
--TERRENCE MCNALLY

"Thomas Steinbeck's stories breathe vivid new life into nineteenth-century California, and bring to mind the pleasures of such writers as Hamlin Garland, Jack London, and Stephen Crane. This is a splendidly assured and convincing debut."
--DAN CHAON
Author of the National Book Award Finalist Among the Missing

From the Hardcover edition.

Here is a fiction debut that is cause for celebration. Growing up in a family that valued the art of storytelling and the power of oral history, Thomas Steinbeck now follows in his father's footsteps with a brilliant story collection. Down to a Soundless Sea resonates with the rich history and culture of California, recalling vivid details of life in Monterey County from the turn of the century through the 1930s. Steinbeck accomplishes an amazing feat: His stories have the feel of classic literature, but his haunting voice, forceful narrative drive, and dazzling imagery are unmistakably his own. In seven stories, Steinbeck traces the fates and dreams of an eccentric cast of characters, from sailors and ranchers to doctors and immigrants - as each struggles to carve out a living in the often inhospitable environment of rocky cliffs, crashing surf, and rough patches of land along the California coast.