MEANDERING THE BLUE HIGHWAYS

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Mack & Hoopetedoodle

One night Mack lay back on his bed in the Palace Flop house and he said, “I ain’t never been satisfied with that book CANNERY ROW. I would of went about it different....guess I’m just a critic. But if I ever come across the guy that wrote that book I could tell him a few things.... Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle.... Spin up some pretty words maybe, or sing a little song with language.... But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up in the story. So if the guy that’s writing it wants hooptedoodle, he ought to put it right at first. Then I can skip it if I want to, or maybe go back to it after I know how the story come out." John Steinbeck, SWEET THURSDAY (1954)