Thomas Steinbeck death, Steinbeck lived with his wife Gail in Santa Barbara, California. According to his family, he died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 72. Fiction Contributor Thomas Steinbeck Thomas Myles Steinbeck (August 2, 1944 – August 11, 2016) was an American novelist, screenwriter, photographer, and journalist. He published numerous works of fiction, including short stories and novels. He was the elder son of American novelist John Steinbeck. Thomas ("Thom") Steinbeck was born in Manhattan, New York City, to American novelist John Steinbeck and his second wife, singer-composer Gwyndolyn Conger on August 2, 1944. His younger brother John Steinbeck IV,
John Steinbeck realist fully equal to his predecessors Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway." Although modest about his own talent as a writer, Steinbeck talked openly of his own admiration of certain writers. In 1953, he wrote that he considered cartoonist Al Capp, creator of the satirical "Li'l Abner", "possibly the best writer in the world today." At his own first Nobel Prize press conference he was asked his favorite authors and works and replied: "Hemingway's short stories and nearly everything Faulkner wrote." In September 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Steinbeck Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1967, at the behest of "Newsday"