I received a John Steinbeck collection as a Christmas gift a few years ago and I enjoyed it, having never read anything by him before. It had most of the popular Steinbeck stories such as "Of Mice and Men" and "Tortilla Flat" (though it is missing "The Grapes of Wrath"). It ends with the longer story "Cannery Row" which is about the interweaving lives of large cast of characters in Monterey, California. When I was writing about the collection on
here, I was doing a little research on the stories and saw that "Cannery Row" had a sequel called
Sweet Thursday. I picked up a while ago and finally got around to reading it.
Sweet Thursday picks up a while after "Cannery Row" and has only a few characters that overlap however, the primary protagonists of the previous story, Doc and Mack return and again the main characters. The book focuses mostly on the personal journey of Doc and how he is trying to rouse himself out of a depression and his friends actions to help him. As you may be able to guess if you have read "Cannery Row" this leads to a lot of entertaining antics.
This is a sequel but it is set far enough off that it could be its own story. If you read it that way the characters might lose a little depth but would still be fine. I think that "Cannery Row" is a better overall story though so I would recommend starting with that regardless. Like its predecessor,
Sweet Thursday also manages to end with some semblance of a happy ending which is pretty rare in Steinbeck.
I think the part of this book that I will remember the most is Fauna, the woman who runs the local brothel. She genuinely cares for her charges and really wants them to be happy. She really sort of makes the book complete, if a tad manipulative.
Overall, I would give this book an
87%.
