John Steinbeck asocial individuals who, in their wild revels, are almost caricatures of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. It has been said that in the United States this book came as a welcome antidote to the gloom of the then prevailing depression." "Tortilla Flat" was adapted as a 1942 film of the same name, starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield, a friend of Steinbeck. With some of the proceeds, he built a summer ranch-home in Los Gatos. Steinbeck began to write a series of "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set among common people during the Great Depression.
John Steinbeck IV he studied Tibetan Buddhism with Chögyam Trungpa. On March 6, 1982, he married Nancy Harper, who had two children from a previous marriage; Steinbeck also had a child of his own. In 1983, the family traveled around the world for a year, living in Kathmandu to pursue their Buddhist studies. In 1984, Steinbeck was diagnosed with hemochromatosis, a genetic disease that causes iron retention. After years of heavy drinking, he quit in 1988. He became very interested in alcoholism's genetic aspects, and participated in Twelve-Step Programs. It was Steinbeck who broke the story of Ösel Tendzin's AIDS to the Boulder