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 includes "Rocinante", the camper-truck in which Steinbeck made the cross-country trip described in "Travels with Charley". His father's cottage on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of his earliest books, also survives. In Monterey, Ed Ricketts' laboratory survives (though it is not yet open to the public) and at the corner which Steinbeck describes in "Cannery Row", also the store which once belonged to Lee Chong, and the adjacent vacant lot frequented by the hobos of Cannery Row. The site of the "Hovden Sardine Cannery" next to Doc's laboratory is now occupied by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.