John Steinbeck House (Monte Sereno, California) John Steinbeck House (Monte Sereno, California) The John Steinbeck House at 16250 Greenwood Lane in Monte Sereno, California, was the home of author John Steinbeck from 1936 to 1938. The house was built in 1936, in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains in what was then part of the town of Los Gatos, California, for Steinbeck and his wife, Carol. While living in the house, Steinbeck wrote "The Grapes of Wrath" and completed "Of Mice and Men". The Steinbecks added a guest house to the property after the house's completion; renowned actors, literary agents, and friends of the Steinbecks
John Steinbeck novel, and the critical outcry when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, Steinbeck published no more fiction in the next six years before his death. In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature for his "realistic and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and keen social perception." The selection was heavily criticized, and described as "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes" in one Swedish newspaper. The reaction of American literary critics was also harsh. The "New York Times" asked why the Nobel committee gave the award to an author whose "limited talent is,