John Steinbeck with "Tortilla Flat" (1935), a novel set in post-war Monterey, California, that won the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal. It portrays the adventures of a group of classless and usually homeless young men in Monterey after World War I, just before U.S. prohibition. They are portrayed in ironic comparison to mythic knights on a quest and reject nearly all the standard mores of American society in enjoyment of a dissolute life devoted to wine, lust, camaraderie and petty theft. In presenting the 1962 Nobel Prize to Steinbeck, the Swedish Academy cited "spicy and comic tales about a gang of "paisanos",
John Bowe (author) John Bowe (author) John Bowe (born 1964 in Minnesota) is an American author. He is a contributing writer for "The New York Times". He has also written for "The New Yorker", "The American Prospect", "GQ", "McSweeney's", and "This American Life". He co-wrote the screenplay for the film "Basquiat" with Julian Schnabel. He graduated from Minneapolis' Blake School in 1982, obtained an honors BA in English from the University of Minnesota in 1987 and earned an MFA in film from the Columbia University School of the Arts in 1996. "Us: Americans Talk About Making Love" is a selection of oral histories