The Following is a (Fictional) True Story

I was halfway through Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley" when I discovered that the entire story was, in fact, fabricated. To say that I felt betrayed would be slightly over-dramatic (but only slightly). I would venture to say that "disappointed" is a more accurate way of describing how I felt about the minor revelation. After all, "Charley" is supposed to be the story of an author meeting people in the heartland of America, people that the readers themselves will probably never get the chance to meet. He is invited us on a ride-along, for lack of a better phrase. But to find out that the ride-along never took place, that these various unique characters living alongside our country's backroads were fabricated by a man sitting at a desk ... for me, it was the equivalent of receiving an invitation to the hottest party of the year, only to discover that, not only have I been assigned to door-greeting duties for the duration of the night, but I've also showed up at the wrong venue.

It's while reading books like "Charley" that I wonder: why did the author make themselves the story's protagonist? Why did it have to be Steinbeck himself who traveled with Charley? Why couldn't it have been John from Connecticut? Or Mark from Arkansas? Or Gary from Indiana (actually, that's really corny)? By making a fictional man and his equally-fictional dog the protagonists of the story, Steinbeck would not have been doing a disservice to his story. In fact, it might have heightened the material. Consider this: Rather than hearing the story as told by the author and then discovering that the entire experience was imagined, wouldn't this have been a more enjoyable read had we entered the story knowing that the protagonist was fictional? In a sense, it would have invited us readers to put ourselves in the shoes of the main character, making him a stand-in for the American Everyman. I would love to read that story.