A Revisitation of Steinbeck’s ‘Cannery Row’ – Through the Eyes of a Cat

Local author Nancy Harray. (Photo courtesy)

In 1958, the city of Monterey would rename Ocean View Avenue “Cannery Row,” in honor of an industry and an era that would ultimately end in 1973, when Hovden, the last remaining cannery, closed its doors. The new name also offered a nod to John Steinbeck, who, in 1945, gave the seaside community its cultural identity with his novel of the same name.

The story follows “Mack and the Boys” on the escapades of these unemployed but streetwise boys who prowl the jungle at the edge of a vacant lot on the Row. While the novel portrays the culture of a coastal community when sardines were around and people were getting rich or scraping by, it neglected to include a cat named “Jack.”

There were many feral cats, probably ate better than many of the Row’s human residents, but they were generally not given names. Except for Jack.

“Jack the Cannery Row Cat” (2023), by Nancy Harray, is the story of a stray cat who survives on the Row, alternating between states of terror and intrigue as he dodges danger (mostly as dinner for the dogs and as a specimen for Dr. Ricketts’ lab) and searches for enough food to survive.

It could be said that “Jack,” based on the plot and characters of Steinbeck’s “Cannery Row,” follows the quintessential format of “fanfiction”—fictional writing based on an established or published work of fiction, in which the author references established characters or settings created by the original author as a way to play with the story.

Fanfiction has become a widely read genre, used to entertain, create community among readers, and often to allow the author to approach the story from a different angle or as they imagine it. This allows fans to rework a story, expressing it from their own perspective, while also inviting readers to question and think beyond the established structure or story.

No one really knows Jack’s story, who knows the backstory of a wild cat, but author Nancy Harray imagines that Mack from “Mack and the Boys” gave him his name, similar to hers, and maybe a few sardines to sustain him. Still, when Jack sees the big guy approaching with a big cage, he steps aside.

Jack is an intelligent cat.

“I hope readers will root for Jack, who, in his quest to become a hero in the story—a quintessential Steinbeck theme—is often discouraged when his efforts are thwarted,” Harray said. “However, I don’t expect readers to feel sorry for him. And neither does he.”

Sources of inspiration

Harray doesn’t recall being an avid writer growing up in Connecticut. She kept journals, but she was always amazed at people who felt they just had to write. But as she got older, the more she studied Steinbeck, the more she was inspired to reimagine her writing.

“I like the idea of ​​revisionist writing,” he said. “Steinbeck has a chapter in ‘Cannery Row’ about words, and I felt like I wanted to have a little discussion with him. I didn’t change the characters or alter too much. But I followed Jack’s wisdom that human beings shouldn’t always use our words and instead really look at each other. Maybe that would be more constructive.”

With no more than a “gentle tweak” to what Steinbeck was talking about in “Cannery Row,” the story, Harray says, is entirely derivative. Except for the cat.

Harray graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in sociology, and aimed to become a social worker. However, love took her to California, where she earned her teaching degree and began teaching on the “upper” peninsula. Eventually, she moved to Monterey, where she taught at Monterey High from the early 1980s until 2005. During that time, she and her colleagues founded the Monterey Academy of Oceanographic Science on campus. In 2006, she began teaching at Monterey Peninsula College, from which she retired in 2021.

“I would never have written ‘Jack the Cannery Row Cat’ if I hadn’t read ‘Cannery Row’ with my ninth-grade students,” she said. “We took field trips to The Row and sometimes went into Doc Rickett’s lab. We toured the Hopkins Marine Station and went to the big tide pool. All of those experiences were in my mind as I sat down and wrote ‘Jack,’ which is part of a series of birthday books I wrote for my nephew’s first through tenth-grade birthdays.”

As she wrote, Harray thought of the legendary author Joseph Campbell, who spent time with his friends, Steinbeck and Ricketts, both on land and at sea. Inspired by Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey,” she wove the structure into her story.

“A hero’s journey,” he said, “is about a character going on an adventure, learning a lesson, triumphing with his new knowledge, and then returning home, transformed. Jack left the comfort of the abandoned boiler room where he lived, set out on his journey, and survived. Yet even Campbell was open to ambiguity at the end. Jack’s future is unclear, or at least open to interpretation.”

Once Harray felt ready to publish “Jack, the Cannery Row Cat,” she shared it with dear friend and Steinbeck scholar Dr. Susan Shillinglaw, who offered her own interpretation of the tale.

“Jack, the Cannery Row cat, seeks adventure,” he said, “among the ‘gathered and scattered’ of Cannery Row in Monterey. Jack’s gaze upon the Row is intense and even dreamlike, capturing the magical range of Steinbeck’s novel. His determined quest, in which he encounters the novel’s diverse characters, helps us see familiar terrain anew, from the eye of a charming and courageous cat.”

“Jack, The Cannery Row Cat,” illustrated by his son Daniel Harray, a New York artist known for his meticulous attention to detail, is available at River House Books in The Crossroads Carmel, where Harray will give a talk on Sunday, July 21 at 1 p.m. In the meantime, he is already at work on his second book, a spin-off of someone else’s writing: his mother.